24′s Jack Bauer: Captain Slow

Indy: action hero, likes it fast

Like Indiana Jones – where you leap from scene to scene. You drive the action forward. Give us big visuals (the huge bolder chasing Indy from the cave). Cut any scenes that slow things up.

Or like an episode of 24 – documenting minute by minute. You make a virtue of including everything. Celebrating the slow so we can completely understand everything you do.

OK, so which do you think your customer wants?

Your instinct may be to explain everything. So that people really get it.

And OK there are some of your readers who LIVE for

detail. Librarians. NASA scientists, accountants. They greedily suck up all the facts and stats you throw

their way. In fact if you don’t offer up the detail then they might suspect you’re hiding something.

Yet I’d bet most of your readers are Indy fans

They are time poor. Information rich. They’d prefer to jump from meaningful highlight to meaningful highlight.

They sure ain’t shaking their fist at the screen, raging: “For heaven’s sake, is there nothing MORE you can tell me?”.

OK, so what does that mean when you sit down to write a sales letter or a web page? Two rules count:

Rule #1 Write, Then Edit

Film editors have to cut scenes all the time. Something might have seemed a good idea at first, but in the end if it takes too long, isn’t essential or doesn’t progress things forward then <snip>, it’s gone.

Do the same. Whatever you’re writing – Raiders or 24 – keep asking yourself, ‘Does this sentence have to be here?’. Does it progress the action?

If not, then <snip>.

Rule #2 Create a Dual Readership Path

Think of Indy as your typical impulse buyer. He doesn’t read documents, he skims them. He’s always reaching for his hat as he’s in a hurry to get somewhere else so he makes decisions fast.

He reads
•    headlines
•    subheads
•    photo captions
•    short bullet points
•    any text that’s formatted differently from the body copy

Jack Bauer is your analytical buyer. He wants detail so he can consider all the angles before making a decision.

He reads
•    everything
•    from the first word to the last, usually in that order
•    that means all the copy
•    as well as the headlines, subheads, captions, bullets and formatted text

Your job now is to write something they both enjoy.

Dan Kennedy calls that the Dual Readership Path – copy that tells the story, whether you read every word or just the twiddly bits. So analysts and impulse buyers can get the story reading the bits they like to read.

So write your long copy for Jack.

Then go through it for Indy adding magnetic and irresistible headlines, subheads etc.

If you look at this article, you’ll see what I mean – you get the gist if you read just the words in bold or italic. Whether you read every word. Or just skimmed to this sentence.

Like this post? Sign up for more in the box top right. Or leave a comment below. Cheers!

Are you doing the Harlem Shake? It’s a current craze on YouTube – 2013′s first internet Meme.

A Meme is something all the cool kids are doing. And here’s where this one started – in the weird part of YouTube with this video.

It was copied and refined by others (12,000 Shake videos uploaded in 2 weeks). And some were getting lots of views.  10 million in the 1st fortnight for one office version, 7.5 million for an underwater one from the University of Georgia’s swim and dive team.

Nowadays the typical video starts with one person, often masked, gently dancing along and ignored by anyone else in shot. Then the drum and bass kick in and we jump cut to a group of people dancing in crazy costumes or with props.  From nervous hopping like a bunch of self conscious tapdancers, to full-on writhing on the ground, rhythmic pointing at the sky, gyrating against furniture, dressed like gorillas in bikinis – you name it, it could be in there somewhere.

As I write more Harlem Shake videos are being recorded and uploaded to YouTube. And many people are sitting at their computers searching them out to find the best ones.

What’s the point? Why do it? Why did it catch on?

Not a clue.

Yet it makes for an interesting marketing opportunity.

This is a bandwagon that’s ready to be jumped on by the right type of business. With millions of people googling ‘Harlem Shake’, canny companies are making their own versions, ending them with a promotional slide and – fingers crossed – hoping they might get noticed and passed around.

A Meme for marketing purposes.  A Memekerting opportunity.

Note – this sort of caper only works as a business marketing tool for some businesses. Something light hearted. Not too refined a brand. You won’t find Harlem Shake videos from the management teams of Harrods or Ralph Lauren, for example.

But for the right company, it’s worth thinking about.

Here are some examples of business getting on the Meme theme to get their marketing seen. Some more successful than others.

Snooker tournament to promote? The Welsh Open Final did it here (watch to the end)…

Educational programme to promote? The Bay Area Discovery Museum did it here…

An aquarium launch to promote? Seaworld San Antonio did it here…

Lessons to learn

Gonna jump? Jump early. Bandwagons are like pyramid selling. Only those who leap on them early get the benefit. So as I write 3 weeks into this Meme really boring versions have 17 million views, while others that are just as boring have 1,000. They just may have been slower to get out there.

Keep it relevant. If you can, make it relevant to your business – this is the Shake video for www.moo.com (who do funky business cards).  It’s not really an official version – just done by someone on the team. But the main guy is throwing business cards around, which fits.

Use every opportunity for promo. The Moo video doesn’t have an end slide to promote the business. (Cross.) But in the video description it does list lots of other links. So if you wanted to find out more, you could. (Tick.)

Only jump on the bandwagon if it enhances your brand. He had a couture business to promote, so this guy did one. On the plus side he has captioned his website on the screen all the way through, giving him an additional advert. And making it MUCH easier to track him down and explain why haute couture and the Harlem Shake don’t go together.

Shake a leg

OK, enough about the rest of the world. How about YOU?

Have you posted a Harlem Shake video for your business? Or seen one online you like? (I may regret this, but what the heck…) post the link in the comments below.

And if you enjoyed this post, leave your name and email in the box (top right) and I’ll send you marketing nuggets just like this every week.

Cheers,

Andrea
Copy Made Simple

The school’s had problems recently. The last Head left under a cloud and there’s been no proper replacement for a year.

The school is judged just ‘Satisfactory’ by the education board (which every parent knows means ‘Far-From-Satisfactory’.)

Then there are the barriers that have sprung up between school and parents – like the general lack of communication, or the 10 foot gates that were installed one weekend without consultation or explanation. I used to walk my boy right to the nursery door. Now I get to the gate and a teacher who is on sentry duty shouts, “Stop there!” as he is whisked away.

I want my child’s school to be healthy and part of the community. Not failing and pushing me and other parents away.

Enter Nena, the new Head. Parents are curious about the woman sent to save us. And disappointed when they learn this is her first post as Head Teacher. (Shouldn’t they send someone with experience?)

So Nena’s first job is to talk to parents, reassure us, get us on side as she launches her untried, untested rescue plan.

——————-

On a snowy morning last week I found myself in the school hall along with 30 other concerned parents to hear what she had to say. There were a few youngsters there too, noses pressed up against the glass, breath steaming up the window, eyes longingly staring at the fat flakes of snow fallling outside.

Nena stood before us – cool and calm, big smile. If she was nervous, it didn’t show.

And she started by asking if we were sitting comfortably as she wanted to tell us a story her grandmother had told her when she was young…

“Once upon a time,” she said “there was a stomach. This stomach was very good at accepting and digesting food. But the rest of the body wasn’t too happy about that.”

Parents shot each other glances. They weren’t expecting this sort of opening…

Nena continued:

“The eyes said: ‘I look out for the food, see if it’s good to eat. Without me the stomach would eat food that made him ill. And yet it doesn’t even notice me. It just sits there and accepts the food.’

“‘Yes,’ cried the mouth. ‘I am the one who chews the food into small pieces. I am the gateway to the body. And yet do I get any appreciation from the stomach? Not a bit of it! It just accepts the food without so much as a thank you.’

“The legs grumbled: ‘Stomach doesn’t even have to move, thanks to us. We take him to his meal every day. Yet stomach never thanks us. It just accepts the food and that’s it.’

“So the legs, eyes and mouth decide to teach stomach a lesson. They will stop feeding that uppity stomach, and see how long it takes for it to change its ways.

“On the first day, they feel smug. Breakfast, lunch and dinner come and go unacknowledged. Stomach is starting to rumble, wondering what happened to all the food.

“On the second day, legs, eyes and mouth are positively triumphant at stomach’s distress. It is empty and shrinking.

“On the third day, however, the legs start to wobble. The eyes itch. Mouth feels dry. None of them has any energy.”

Nena looked at the parents sitting in the hall, totally absorbed in this story. At the sound of her sing-song voice, even the kids had turned away from the windows. All eyes were on here. You could have heard a pin drop.

Nena smiled, and continued.

“‘I get it!’ said the legs. ‘We must work together if we want to live!’

“‘I see,’ said the eyes. ‘We have to stop thinking of what suits us alone, and instead work as a team.’

“‘Let’s sort this out now,’ cried the mouth. ‘Legs – walk over to the mango tree. Eyes – find a nice juicy mango. And I’ll chew it up for stomach.’

“And stomach just smiled.”

Nena stopped and looked at us for a moment. And I think we all worked out what she was about to say before she delivered the line.

“We are partners in this school – the teachers, the parents, the governors, the children. And we all understand that we can achieve great things by talking to each other and working together.”

“I cannot undo some of the things that have been done in the past here. But I have my own plans that I think are going to make a real difference to our future. I understand that we are one body. We need each other. So with that understanding let me tell you a bit about what we have in store…”

I could have rushed over and hugged her. In 3 minutes I’d gone from cautious and not expecting much to being a big big fan.

Actually her ideas sounded good – including a monthly Open Class so parents could come sit in class and see what our kids were working on.

But more importantly I now trusted this first-time Head. She turned a ‘blame meeting’ with people wanting to air grievances into a constructive session. She acknowledged the problems in the past. But pointed us instead to the future. And all with just a story.

I talked to her afterwards. Told her that I help businesses tell their stories – show who they are and what they stand for in just the same way as she just had.

She laughed and said: “I’m just doing what my grandmother taught me. And I’ve plenty more stories like that…”

Normally I try to make life simple for you as a writer. But today let’s just marvel at the complexity of the English language.

I found this online. No idea who wrote it. If you know, leave a comment underneath.

And also comment on the words you found hard to pronounce. Could be fun to compile a top 10 of the hardest. Anyway, here goes…

 

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.

I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,

Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.

Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhymes with hammer.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.

Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.

Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.

Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.

Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.

Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?

It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

Your ‘About Us’ page is a real deal breaker.

It’s probably one of the most visited pages on your site – especially by new arrivals.

And if someone loves what you offer, but isn’t convinced by your ‘About Us’ spiel, you are likely to lose the sale.

So how does yours hold up?

1.  Do you look the part?

Us humans need to know where we are. It’s part of our survival mechanism to quickly understand the context of any situation – or, in this case, any web page. And we get easily disorientated, annoyed or suspicious if we can’t see the context.

So it’s important your page looks the part. Don’t take people to a whacky concept page. Instead:

Solution: Call the page ‘About Us’ in the navigation bar and at the top of the page (or About Me, History, or something similar). Include at least one picture of you or your team – or a 60-second video welcome is even better. And include at least some text that covers who you are. Traditional stuff.

2.  Are you special?

People love to discover the next big thing. Or they love being part of a winning team. One way you can give them both is to position your company as something special.

So what’s the No 1 mistake that you should avoid (and that your competitors do nearly every time)? They include too long a chronological list of what they’ve done in business (how they got started, their first client, their next challenge, etc).

Hey… we’re not interviewing you for a job here, Toots! We don’t need your life story. Just the highlights – like who you are and your main message.

Solution: don’t give us the entire story. Try focussing on 2 or 3 highlights from your story. Here’s some ideas for inspiration:

• Why did you get into business? Tell us your magic moment, your turning point, your epiphany that turned you into an entrepreneur.
• Are you on a mission? Tell us what you believe in, why, and the difference you are making the world.
• What hurdles have you overcome? If you’re a one-legged fitness instructor, a colourblind artist or you started your business with a credit card because your bank wouldn’t lend you money…  we want to know.
• What’s interesting about you? Are you a former astronaut? An albino monk?
• What injustice is your company here to put right? Is yours not so much a company, more a campaign?

Here are some real life examples..

Branson starts Virgin (magic moment)

The Dyson bagless cleaner (a campaign not a company)

James Dyson was an engineer with a dirty carpet. His vacuum wouldn’t work so he dismantled it in the living room and – amazing – discovered it was designed to fail. Any dust sucked in just clogged the mechanism and reduced sucking power. James was pretty annoyed. So was his wife (“You did WHAT with my cleaner?”).

 

So he solved the problem by ditching the bag and using a cyclone instead. No bag = no loss of suction. Perfect. Yet at first no vacuum manufacturer wanted it ‘cos they wanted to sell replacement bags. And then they tried to steal the design. That sucked. So James built his own factory and launched the Dyson bagless cleaner himself.

Post-It Notes (overcoming hurdles)

One geek invented a glue that didn’t stick very well. (Not much use. Who needs glue that doesn’t stick?) But another geek needed to stop bookmarks falling out of his book. He realised he could put the non-sticky glue on the back of paper slips and use them as secure but removable bookmarks. And so Post-Its were born.

Innocent Smoothies (on a mission)

Two college grads sold homemade smoothies at a music festival. They put up a sign asking people if they thought they should give up their jobs to make smoothies, and two bins marked ‘Yes’ and ‘No”. They asked people to vote with their empties. At the end of the weekend, the ‘Yes’ bin was full, so they resigned from their jobs the next day and started ‘Innocent Smoothies’.

 

Ever since they’ve offered the world natural, delicious, healthy foods that help people live well and die old.

See how much personality there are in these stories? How can you bring out the same sort of thing on your page?

3.  Are your customers important to you?

Once you’ve written your ‘personality’ bit, stop talking about just you.

Yes, it is your story. But people are looking for what your story means for THEM.

Plus you’ve got to come over as likeable. You don’t want to be that bore at parties who just talks about their care, their job, their pension, their view of life.

Yawn.

Solution: talk about them. Focus on what your typical customer wants and how you deliver it in bucketloads. So when you talk about an aspect of who you are, give a little nod to your customer, eg:

‘You need a solution that works and is reliable, so we’ve spent 7 years testing and re-testing to make sure we’ve got the best system on the market’.

‘Customers rate design as one of the most important features of a phone. Our design has won the ABC award for design 2 years on the go’.

4.  Are you credible?

On one level this is standard stuff . Your name, who’s behind the company, how you got started, qualifications, etc.

But underneath there’s a whole other thing going on. People are asking: “Are you credible?”.

Solution: you don’t need an endless list of how you’re brilliant. Just 2 or 3 facts that prove your credentials will do, eg how many years trading, qualifications gained, markets covered, your mission in life, etc.

Readers might not believe YOU when you talk about how great you are. So include some sort of EXTERNAL endorsement too  (a line from a customer testimonial, mention of an award you received, reference to repeat business you’ve won, that you are a published author, that you are asked to speak at industry events, etc).

Include an actual number or statistic somewhere. We’re a sucker for numbers!

5. Are you trustworthy?

Your ‘About Us’ visitor is interested in you. So they are halfway to being your customer. But are you the right sort of person or company for them? Trust is a delicate bubble that’s easily burst.

Solution: highlight things that are reassuring. Talk about your ethics, for example, the charity you support, your environmental record, your guarantee.

6.  Are you relevant?

Readers look for relevance. If they don’t spot familiar words and phrases in your text, then they’ll assume you’re not relevant and click away.

Solution: zero-tolerance on jargon. Use words that your customer understands.

More importantly include keywords. Readers are just like search engines. They look for keywords to assess if you’re relevant. Plus – of course – search engines need them too, if you want to get found online.

Some short keywords will be in your story already (if you’re a dentist, you’ve probably written the word ‘dentist’ in your About Us page somewhere).

But think of the longer keyword combinations that relate to your business and that people would type into Google, and make sure they are in there too. For example ‘dentist in London’, or ‘child-friendly dentist’.

Don’t force them in there. You’re not stuffing a turkey! But, where you can, include natural-sounding versions of short or long-tail keywords in the title, 1st and last paras and subheads.

Like what you read here? Leave your details in the box top right to receive links to new blog posts and other copy hints and tips.

Have you seen this picture? Two notes. One door. And the ugly world of office politics.

It may be a passive-aggressive exchange of notes to us.

Yet read between the lines for some observations on good communication…

Lesson 1
Caps and exclamation marks = shouting

There’s an energy about the 1st note because IT’S SHOUTING, ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS, WITH REPEATED EXCLAMATION MARKS.

•    It might be screaming indignation – this writer has experienced drafts that no human should have to endure and has just snapped.

•    It might be irrepressible exuberance – a writer who is just perky beyond belief. If this note were an animal, it’d be a puppy – bouncing up and down excitedly and yapping “gimme a biscuit, gimme a biscuit”.

But the point to remember is that YOU DON’T WANT TO SHOUT AT PEOPLE YOU WANT TO TALK TO!!!!!!!! Especially when combined with EXCESSIVE AMOUNTS OF EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!!

(I love my blog theme. But I hate that it puts my opening paras in capital letters. My designer tells me I can’t change the template format. So I’m stuck with it until I change theme. Annoying. Although I’m not shouting about it.)

Lesson 2
Position your message well

Author 1 may be slightly unhinged. Yet he or she does know something about marketing. The first note is in exactly the right place – above the handle and directly in the eyeline of anyone opening the door.

The message isn’t stuck neatly in the centre of the door. Or even on a memo on the noticeboard. Work out where your customers are, and deliver your message there. Classic marketing strategy, that. Nice one.

Lesson 3
Build rapport with your reader

As entrepreneurs we get a whole lot further by being nice to people and building rapport and relationships. This note is a masterclass in burning bridges rather than building them.

Clearly Author A hasn’t had a hug today.

Can’t you just see the eyebrow arching in withering contempt as Author 2’s fingers reproachfully tippity-tapped away in Aerial – the proper font of informational signs?

There’s a deep need for significance revealed here. The desire to put a colleague down in order to feel superior.

Even the position of this note says something. It’s not under Note 1 on the right. No no no. It’s in the centre of the door. As if to say: “And THIS is the correct place to stick signs, you dullard.”.

Ouch.

How ironic, then, that Author 1’s note has some errors. Did you spot them?

Lesson 4
Always proofread, even notes on the door

The problem is with capital letters. Online capital letters have specific rules which we’ll cover in a future post. But on doors, well normal rules apply…

Normally you use lower case letters for ordinary words, and an initial capital for a proper noun or name. Which is why you understand this next sentence:

I bought an apple from the market and an Apple from the store.

So Note A is using capitals a bit too enthusiastically; ‘company’, ‘lemonade’ and ‘stand’ should all be lower case. *

Also there should be a space either side of the dash between ‘Sans’ and ‘we’. Otherwise it looks like a strange attempt at hyphenation.

Lesson 5
Please don’t use Comic Sans

Author 2 is right on the whole Comic Sans thing, though.

This font was designed specifically for use with children. Yet we’ve adopted it as a general friendly font.

How Comic Sans compares to normal fonts. Choose wisely

If you want to talk to adults you must resist, resist, resist.

Not sure if it’s a Comic Sans moment? Read your Comic Sans copy in the voice of a 5-year old. If it doesn’t work, then choose another. The box on the right offers some great alternatives.

Ignore the advice on Comic, and you may not be laughing for long. Perhaps tomorrow you’ll find a cutting note stuck to your door.

Either way the writing’s on the wall here for inter-office relations. There’s a chill in the air after this exchange (although that might just be that someone had left the door open, of course).

Which of these rules is most important in your book? Let us know below in the comments section.

In a few weeks we’ll be seeing Usain Bolt, Mo Farrah and Jessica Ennis out on the track. Rebecca Addlington and Michael Phelps in the pool. Maybe Paula Radcliffe will be hopping into someone’s front garden mid-Marathon for a little wee.

I find myself buying bunting. Dressing in red, white and blue. Prone to waving flags and shouting ‘Huzzah!’ for no reason.

But with all the millions being spent on the event, I can’t help but think the website is a bit of a letdown.

‘Cos for visitors or anyone booking tickets www.london2012.com has been a bit of a useability circus (albeit a five-ringed one) thanks to:

Patchy venue info - when I was booking tickets the site stubbornly refused to tell me much about the venues. It said the rowing was at Eton Dorney. OK, so how do I get there? Is there parking? Can I take a child’s pushchair with me? This info was not available.

Patchy sporting info – I clicked on gymnastics and was asked ‘Rhythmic or Artistic’ and then clicked numerous buttons to find out which was the Olga Korbut variety and which was the ladies throwing ribbons in the air. Again there was no obvious answer. I got my info in the end from Google.

The Orbit: steps? helter skelter?

Patchy logistical detail – the Orbit is a huge architectural structure in the Olympic Park. You can book to go up the Orbit for magnificent views over London and the Park. But the original site was sketchy on how you got up and down. Was it with steps? A lift? Water cannon?

I’m taking my kids who are 5 and 3. I want the Olympics to be something they remember for the rest of their lives. But not because mummy made them walk up 85 metres and abseil down again.

Yet worst of all for me is the mangled copy

The writing on this site is in the same sort of shape as Uri Geller’s teaspoons. Not completely broken. But certainly bent out of shape, for example:

“After the Games, the Orbit will close and re-open in late 2013, when it will give even more visitors the opportunity to experience it.”

You can make out what it means despite the random commas and grammatical errors. But it’s inelegant. And – dammit – London 2012 shouldn’t be inelegant.

This sort of nonsense is annoying. Not just because it’s so easy to write it properly in the first place. But also ‘cos the world is watching. Including the world’s website writers who will be snickering in distain at our inability to wwwork the wwweb. Quelle horreur!

Here you go, Sebastian Coe, have this one on me…

“The Orbit will close temporarily once the Olympic Games finish. However it will reopen in late 2013 to give you another chance to experience its views of the Olympic Park.”

And, if it helps, I’m volunteering my services to rewrite the site so that it sparkles like the eyes of my kids as they watch their home city host the greatest show on earth.

HUZZAH!

Strange.

I looked down at my cup of tea.

BOOM.

Ripples…

Remember Jurassic Park? The Jeep tour that breaks down in the rain? There’s a faint boom – and the cup of water on the dashboard ripples. “Can you hear that?” asks the boy…  From this point it’s only a couple of minutes until there’s a toothy T-Rex sticking his head through the passenger window.

Well I can hear it.

I got ripples.

Should I close the curtains?

BOOM!

OK, let’s go outside to take a look. (It’s a movie tradition, right? Something bad happens, so someone nips out to investigate. I know how these things go!)

Of course!

Two minutes later all is explained.

Not a dinosaur. A wrecking ball, demolishing the empty and unloved house at the end of my road.

You think T-Rex could do some damage? How about a ball?

It may seem puny in comparison, but here’s one literally pounding bricks and mortar into submission. Yesterday that house thought it would stand for another 100 years. Today it’s full of holes and sinking to its knees.

When wall meets ball, there’s only one winner.

Film over, back to work

Relieved at the lack of dinosaurs I strolled back to my desk – and the wall of words I had to turn into a website.

I needed my own editorial wrecking ball to reduce this towering task to size.

And then – BOOM! – I realized I had the perfect bit of equipment to hand.

The trusty bullet point

A well-aimed bullet will help you do a couple of things:

• Reduce the words – turn long copy into short by demolishing paras. Then you can rebuild with lists

• Reformat what’s left – use bullets to draw attention to key points so that they spring out of the page for readers

Bullets can take ordinary copy like this:

and turn it into this – copy you can understand at a glance:

Yet it’s not just a case of writing a list of bullet points.

No, there are RULES (did you know?) according to …

• Useability experts – who study how people read web sites, and what they click on and away from
• Direct response marketers – who write million dollar sales letters, and obsessively test what gets customers to say ‘Yes!’

When to use them

• Not in reported speech or a narrative story – unless the world is ready for this sort of thing…

• Definitely for information pages
• For paras containing lists – take the list and reformat it as bullet points
• To highlight an issue from several viewpoints – particularly useful when you’re writing a sales letter and have to talk about different benefits

Use them for skimmable copy

Bullets are meant to help people skim your text and pick up meaning at a glance.

If you’re writing whole paras and sticking a bullet in front, you’ve missed the point. So to speak. This sort of thing isn’t skimmable…

The quickest fix is to add a subhead to each point for instant skimmability…

However:

Mix bullets and paras

Don’t go ballistic with the bullet points and machine gun them simply everywhere in your copy.  You’ll end up with lots of disjointed staccato thoughts and no connecting story in between. It is far better to mix them with normal text so they have something to contrast with and therefore stand out more.

Otherwise you look like you’re shouting at people. Or giving them revision notes for an exam. Not normal.

Try this instead – a mix of styles…

Limit the length of a list (or split it)

Your aim is to create order and direction for your reader. So take care not to write too long a list of plain bullets. It looks like you’re throwing the info at us, saying “YOU sort it out!”.

So up to 10 points in a single list is fine. But 11 points or above, split your list down into natural sub-categories. That turns this…

into something more intuitive and ‘grouped’ like this:

Order them correctly

When you’re writing sales copy and want to impress, pay attention to the order of your bullets. Write them like this:

• 1st = your most important benefit
• 2nd = the 2nd most important benefit
• then = another benefit
• then = another benefit
• last = your 3rd most important benefit

People will skim the list. They’ll read the top couple of points, and then the last one. So if these 3 are solid gold, readers will assume that all the bits in between are just as good too.

Take out the fullstops

Yes, you read that right! (Feeling faint at that suggestion? Bear with me…)

Your copy should flow with as few interruptions as possible. Your job is to maintain momentum and keep people reading so that they don’t click away. Obviously you need fullstops at the end of normal sentences or you’ll look a doofus. But in a bullet point list, no-one really notices if you take them out. So take advantage of that opportunity to keep people reading!

Alternate bold and regular paras

On a sales letter, try setting one bulleted para bold and the next one regular (see below).

Direct response copywriter Gary Halbert thought this helped readers digest each point better. On a printed sales letter, fine. But on the web I’d avoid it as readers might get confused about the significance of the formatting.

Bullets v numbered lists

There are only 2 times you use numbered lists:

When you’re writing number-led copy
Like “3 ways to get her on a date”, “5 signs he’s having an affair”, “50 ways to leave your lover”.

When you’re writing instructions
Instructions are a description of steps. A process. So it makes sense to number them in a sequence. We tend to follow instructions in a numbered list to the letter and in the order given.

If a numbered list means “Do this!”, bear that in mind in your marketing copy. So if you put your ‘buy now’ instructions into a numbered list, for example, it will encourage those thinking of buying to do so.

Look at the difference between numbered lists and bulleted lists below:

The numbers show a process (do this 1st, 2nd 3rd). You’d feel compelled to follow along in that order. The bullets show options or alternatives.

So reserve numbers for a process and bullets for mix and match advice or choices. In fact, if you are offering people a choice, tell them. It avoids much head scratching as to what is the next step:

And finally…

Start numbered lists with a VERB

If it’s a process, there’s action involved. Action = verbs. So drive the point home by putting a verb as the 1st word in the sentence. As in:

Did you enjoy this post?

1. Go to the bar on the left side of the page
2. Click on some of the buttons there to share
3. Scroll down to the bottom of this post
4. Leave a Facebook or a blog comment
5. Scroll to the VERY bottom of the page and leave your name and email in the box. Then I’ll send you a message when I post stuff to this blog – hurrah!

PS:  that’s a numbered list. Did you notice the effect of the numbers? That you felt that it would be normal to do all 5 actions, rather than pick and choose your favourite?

In this case that’s a good urge. Give in to it. Or I’ll send the T-Rex round!

If you want more info on readability, I can recommend Letting Go Of The Words by Janice Redish.

Your turn…

Tell me the top golden nugget you learned from this post – if you’ve got the balls, of course!

Copy made simple in a few easy steps…

Copy that gets someone to click your link, opt-in to your list, make a donation, buy your widget?

You’re in luck!

There’s a simple 5-Step Formula for easy copywriting that gives an ideal structure to most marketing content.

• It’s simple – so simple you can’t do it wrong
• It’s easy to remember – you can pull it out of the bag and look like a genius copywriter at a moment’s notice without having to scrabble about for your notes. Ta daaa!
• It gets results – imagine how confident you’d feel starting your next email or sales letter knowing you’ve got a tried and tested blueprint to follow.

In my 22 years as a writer, this is the most consistent formula I’ve found. I learnt it from copywriting mentor and wordy legend, John Carlton. And I use it again and again ‘cos it’s so darn good.

Want to know the secret?

Read the rest of this blog post. Commit the technique to memory (that will be the best 3 minutes you ever spend on this site!). And if you think it’s useful, then Like, Retweet or Share it on so others can enjoy it too.

Quick summary…

The Foolproof 5-Step Formula For Simple Copy

• Tell me what you are offering
• Tell me what it will do for me
• (In bullet points) repeat Steps 1 and 2
• Tell me who you are
• Tell me what to do next

STEP 1. What You Are Offering …

OK, so start at the beginning. What are you offering the world today. What’s… (dramatic pause…) The Thing?

You need an overview statement so I know what you’re talking about. One line is usually enough.

Beware, though. Take a look at what you wrote. Is it a bit drab and boring? ‘Cos if you bore or frustrate me, I’ll just wander off somewhere else.

So show me you’ve got someThing of significance here. SomeThing different to all those other Things out there. Add sparkles:

“Launching today: an online Social Media Academy”
= a bit dull.

“Launching today: the online Social Media Academy
with FREE lifetime updates and tech support 24/7”
= shiney!

To recap: You’ve just described The Thing’s features (it’s an online Social Media Academy. That is has free lifetime updates. And 24/7 tech support.)

STEP 2. What It Will Do For Me

Tell me how The Thing will make my life sweet as honey, if only I’d open the door and let it in!

You need to take the facts you’ve established in Step 1, and lock an emotional benefit to each one. Tell me what each feature will DO for me, what it helps me ACHIEVE, how it will make me FEEL.

Examples:

“FREE lifetime updates, which means that… you’ll have complete confidence that you’re up to date in your training in one of the fastest changing industries in the world. Let others spend time researching, and worrying whether they’ve got current information. You KNOW you have.”

“Tech support 24/7, which means that… you can stop being your own IT help desk. From now on, we do all that for you. You focus on growing your business, finding new customers, offering them what they want. And know that you can find an expert to talk to any hour of the day or night if you hit any snags.”

Once you’ve written that down just replace ‘which means that’ with a dash.

STEP 3. Repeat Steps 1 And 2 in bullet points

Now you need to explain more fully all the nooks and crannies of The Thing.

(Remember I’ll only buy if I understand what you’re offering and why it benefits me.)

• List The Thing’s features point by point

• Bullet point the list – I can then quickly skim your copy and pick up the important points. So whether I read it all or not, I still get the picture

• Pretty up each bullet to make each one more compelling. Use benefits, intrigue, curiosity, celebrity endorsements, etc

Examples:

• “Invites to our Weekly Q&A webinars”
  A feature. That’s OK.

• “Invites to our Weekly Q&A webinars – (which means that) every 7 days you can ask our experts and your ‘family’ in the Academy what they think of your page live on air. Honest feedback from a community you can trust – what price would you put on that?”
  Better. You’ve included a benefit too.

• “Invites to our Weekly Q&A webinars – (which means that) It’s your Academy ‘Water Cooler’ moment of the week, giving you all the latest news and keeping you motivated to stay focused. You work alone on your social media all week, so make a date with the team to boost your momentum. Don’t miss it!”
  Another benefit, this time with a command at the end.

• “Invites to our Weekly Q&A webinars – discover the 52 Essential Steps you MUST take to become the biggest brand in your field in the next year!”
  Involves curiosity, and the sense that there’s a plan (1 step per week for 52 weeks). People looking for direction DO like a plan!

• “Invites to our Weekly Q&A webinars – talk direct to social media’s biggest success stories and ask them how THEY did it direct”
  Implies I’ll be rubbing shoulders with celebs. Offers (a) useful networking and (b) the chance to namedrop on my Facebook wall the next day!

• “Invites to our Weekly Q&A webinars – an award-winning feature, given a 10 out of 10 rating by The SocMed Awards”
  Throws in that you’re a winner. Nice!

Do this for all your features until you’ve finished the list.

STEP 4. Who you are

OK now I’m quite taken with The Thing now. But can I trust YOU?

You need to convince me now of two things. 1st that what you say is true, and 2nd that you’re not going to run off with my credit card details and start buying yachts.

You and I may already have a warm marketing relationship. And you may think there’s less need to explain who you are. We met already!

However don’t miss out this stage. I may need a reminder of who you are. And it never hurts to emphasize your credibility. Some people may cheerfully read your newsletter every month, but that doesn’t mean they’ll happily hand over their credit card details as soon as you snap your fingers.

So in Step 4 fill me to the brim with confidence:

Explain your credibility as a witness to The Thing

• How do you know about this subject?

• Are you professionally qualified to pass judgment?

• Or are you a happy shopper recommending The Thing cos it worked for you?

Prove I can trust you

• Include a nice picture of you so I can look you in the eyes and feel like I know you.

• Include graphics that support what you’re saying like a seal of approval or a certificate of guarantee.

• Work on your rapport skills. Tell me why you are just like me. Tell me why you want to help me.

STEP 5. What I Need To Do Next

You’ve got me all warmed up. Now all you have to do is point me in the right direction and whisper the right thing in my ear, and I could whip out my credit card and start calling the numbers out.

What you whisper makes a difference! You need a very strong call to action.

• Introduce scarcity. Give me a reason to take action. Otherwise I might ‘think about it’ (aka wander off without buying). So have a reason – a real one – to make me press the button now. Make your offer only last for a set time limit and then bring it down. Only have a set amount you’re going to sell. (Watch for a new post soon on the rules of scarcity – it’s a truly fascinating subject)

• Assume command. Don’t faff about asking me what I think of the offer. Tell me what to DO. Tell me to grab it! “Don’t let this opportunity pass you by. Take action and make a difference to your life”.

• Be specific. Don’t just bung in a link and assume I will click. Be specific. Tell me to click. Also tell me what to click, where it is on the page, and WHY I need to click.

Put The 5 Steps To Easy Copywriting Into Practice

Once you’ve learned the 5-step structure, use it for everything! Keep on practicing and you’ll get very skilled at 5-stepping.

Also start spotting it in other marketing copy. Particularly in TV infomercials (those guys are the kings of long sales letters!), product reviews on Amazon and sales letters.

(You might want to whizz back up to the top of this post and read the opening section again. Can YOU spot how I used the 5 Steps in the first few paras?)

If you can see the pattern let me know with a c omment on this blog below (I’m curious to see how eagle eyed you are!).

And if you learned something here, I’d be honoured if you could pay it forward by clicking on at least one thing in the Share Bar on the left of the screen.

Thanks! And keep writing…

Andrea
Andrea Sangster – Copy Made Simple

Words and images © 2012 Copy Made Simple.

ANSWER – They were both added last year to the Oxford English Dictionary. Along with 8,000 other words like braincandy (pleasant but untaxing brain stimulation), earworm (a catchy tune), OMG and LOL.

Language is a living breathing thing. Never stands still. And as a marketer it pays to use it nimbly, creating new words to add fizz and individuality to your copy!

Also if you bring out your own product… company… blog… you’ll need a name. One that’s instantly understandable and that makes a real difference to your style and sales success.

How do you solve the problem?

Do what Shakespeare did – make it up!

Picture the scene… It’s the 17th century. Stratford Upon Avon. Green, leafy outpost of Elizabethan England. And William Shakespeare’s got a problem.

“Verily”, quoth he. “I am the Bard of Stratford. Yet though I write tradgedie and comedie there are not enough words yet invented to get it all down. Forsooth.”

Quick translation:

“Do you know how hard this is? I’m England’s greatest playright. I make ‘em laugh, I make ‘em cry. Yet no-one’s invented the words for ‘lonely’ or ‘laughable’ yet. I’m gonna have to make some stuff up. Pass me my quill, I’m going in. Forsooth.”

Shakespeare ended up contributing about 3,000 words or phrases to English. Including

• eyeballs (Midsummer Night’s Dream)
• puking (As You Like It)
• epileptic (King Lear) and
• skim milk (Henry IV).

That makes him a major neologist (a maker-upper of words).

You could do the same. And why not? We’re naming things like crazy nowadays in social media. Some new product or concept comes out every week.

Good ‘neology’ creates words that ‘shorthand’ a meaning quickly and memorably. And make your stuff more interesting to read.

Of course others have tried with less success.

• Who could forget George Bush’s “They misunderestimated me”, for example.
• Or Sarah Palin’s “refudiate” when she perhaps meant to say ‘refute’ or ‘repudiate’.
• Even Obama left his colleagues speechless with the phrase “wee-weed up” which means to be nervous for no particular reason.

You getting a bit wee-weed up at the thought that all this could go horribly wrong?

Don’t worry. This is Copy Made Simple. And we’re here to help!

First principle – write a list of core words

Just list the words associated with your business, product or industry. Even the benefits you hope for people to achieve. They could be any type of word – verbs, nouns, etc.

Then try either of the following tactics

1. Word Mashup!

Take two words. Jam ‘em together to make a new combo.

This can be fantastic shorthand. And you already use it a lot…

• You’re reading the Copy Made Simple blog (web + log)
• Groupon is the trendiest combo word right now (group + coupon)
• Pinterest is another
• Or then again there’s Wowcher in the UK which uses ‘vouchers’ rather than coupons. Wow!
• Freemium service – high quality free service
• Brunch – breakfast and lunch, which you might eat with a spork (spoon + fork combo)
• It’s often used to combine two people – like Brangelina
• Bro-mance – innocent male bonding. Think Matt and Ben. Or Kirk and Spock

This sort of combo word is called a portmanteau. Fancy!

But I call it good copywriting. Creating meaningful and memorable shorthand that makes your copy pop.

QUESTION: So what two words can you combine in your sector to make your own eye catching combo?

2. Prefix And Suffix

You can add layers of meaning just with a extra word at the start or end of your main word.

An extremely powerful tactic. It can even help brand you.

Say you’re a tiny brand lemonade competing against the giants Pepsi and Coke in the soft drinks market? You create a campaign calling yourself an “un-cola” and brag about how you’re different. Like 7-Up did.

OMGenius!

You could

• Disassociate yourself from the competition with the ‘un-‘ (like un-cola)
• Compare yourself (a ‘pro-adviser’) to the competition (the ‘advice-bot’). don’t forget that buying decisions are driven by emotion – by a particular state of mind

So take your core list for your industry terms, and add prefixes and suffixes to see what you can create.

PREFIXES:

un-, co-, com-, con-, cyber-, ex-, meta-, non-, para-, re-, trans-, robo-, anti-, aqua-, aristo-, bio-,circum-, cosmo-, counter-, fore-, geo-, mega-, metro-, multi-, nano-, omni-, pre-, post-, pseudo-, sub-, tele-, trans-, uber-, ultra-

SUFFIXES:

-ment, -ion, -ian, -ist, -ism, -ia, -ness, -able, -al, -an, -ful, -ic, -ure, -ive, ation, -ly, -ing, -er, -ize, -ite, -phobia, -philia, -bot, -icious, -ate, -ality, -bound, -city, -aholic, -hood, -ish, -land, -less.

 

Or try out www.portmanteaur.com.  (Click the name at the top to get going).

Here are some other formulas to consider…

____ monkey, as in
•    cubicle monkey [office drone]
•    grease monkey [auto mechanic]
•    chunky monkey [Ben & Jerry’s].

Mc______, as in
•    McJob [repetitive and tedious job]
•    McWriter [repetitive and tedious blogger]
•    McMusic [ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for Britney!]

Robo _______, as in
•    Robocop [Arnie]
•    Robocopy [outsourcer with a dictionary]

_________ dodger, as in
•    Soap dodger [scruffy]
•    Salad dodger [overweight]
•    Dentist dodger [Austin Powers]

That awkward moment when __________, as in
•    That awkward moment when you glance at someone staring at you
•    That awkward moment when someone says You Guys Should Go Out
•    That awkward moment when you throw something at your friend & hit someone else

Have a go. Think of something. Be graphic. Be funny. Create ludicrous pictures. And post your results below!

If you’ve liked this, then please like, share and retweet. That’d be fanta-bulous!