Transcripts
1. Introduction: your business needs great copy that sells and who knows your business better than you do With a little training, you can pick up the tools to become the copywriter that your business needs. This'll very course will show you how to use words to sing your brand song and become your company's best marketer, even if that's not your background. My name is Rosie Bell, and I'm a travel writer, editor and author. My work has appeared in the likes of Forbes Travel Guide, BBC Voters and Google's touring Bird. I've written copy for brands on both sides of the Atlantic, and I run My own business is broken large I've agencies and directly with clients on a freelance Masons things courses here to help all aspiring wordsmiths, budding entrepreneurs and small business owners looking to grow their brands. It's an engaging starter kit filled to the brim with over 50 best practice examples from small and large businesses that successfully seduced the hearts, minds and wallets of their ideal customers. Upon completion, you'll have a blueprint. Write your own memorable and effective marketing copy that works across different ones. We'll dive into social media copy newsworthy newsletters, wonderful websites, product names, taglines and even personal branding. We'll start from the very beginning, and defined copyrighting is, and how it differs from content writing to no stone will be left unturned in this class. You'll get your creative juices flowing and possibly even have some fun doing so. We'll examine different communication styles and tones of voice that show the cooperating doesn't have to be boring or taxing. Worksheets will be provided for you to take notes. D go along, and you can refer to them at a later stage. At your own pace, you'll get really value. And by the end of the class you'll have tools and insights to become the best sales person for your business because after all, it's yours. Let's get started.
2. Copywriting VS Content Writing, What’s The Difference?: a recurring question in the field of copyrighting is what's the difference between a copywriter and a content writer? Well, while both center their work on writing marketing materials, the purpose of the writing is different. Ah, copywriters. Main goal is to convert on the content writers purposes to entertain, inform and entice readers to engage and interact with the brand. Infographics e books, blood posts and articles are content marketing examples. Ben and Jerry's having a blawg with musing updates and new competition announcements won't directly encourage sales, but it will drive engagement and inspire positive feelings towards the brand. For the sake of simplicity, this course packages both together to give a good overview of writing all the marketing materials you'll need. So what is copy? While it's all the words everything in anything at all that appear in marketing materials, it includes descriptions for an online store, app, the text on packaging, social media, captions, newsletters, sponsored posts, display ads, podcast 11 or scripts, snazzy taglines and slogans, and even the product name itself can be a powerful marketing tool. Great copy is about getting people to buy from, listen to or interact with you because they genuinely want to, and they enjoy what you've created. It isn't spending them with offers over promising or being deceitful in any way.
3. Getting Started: Outlining Your Goals, Audience & Tone: before you start working on copy, it makes sense to outline your marketing goals, audience and tone, knowing what you hope to achieve and who you're talking to, that you know how to talk to them. Having these things clear in your mind is like having a funnel that lets you know what your creative boundaries are. Start with your goals and your purpose. If there was one single thought that you would like people to take away from your writing, what would it be? Consider summarizing it as an imagined quote from one of your users. Begin with your end game in mind, even online writing and editing tool Graham Early asks you to state your purpose at the start of every new project. Knowing your mission actually helps you choose your words. For instance, if you're looking to convince, you'd use loaded in motive wards to invoke a certain feeling or response. If you were trying to educate or inform, you use facts and figures and data or general truisms. If you're trying to convert or if you have desired action in mind, you'd use verbs and calls to action. One thing that should be noted is that you should always be trying to connect with the reader, make your message as personal as possible, and let them imagine that you know who they are, exactly what they want and what their problems are to get them on board. Use you and yours or other than they, we and I to create a direct relationship, engage their imaginations and help them identify with a message and find themselves in it. So what are your goals and objectives? Are you trying to build awareness, showcase products and services, grow community and detain increased sales conversions? Your purpose really determines the approach that you take with your copy. Feel free to pause and take a good look at this list of marketing goals. The next consideration is your audience. Great copy begins with understanding your customers and knowing why they choose you over the millions of others. If you remember the strategy episode of Mad Men. When the advertising agency was tasked with coming up with copy for Burger Chef, they interviewed the fast food chain's customers, and from that most people that bought food there were busy moms who were short on time to make home cooked meals. They felt kind of ashamed about ordering in because they felt they weren't caring for their families adequately. It was the sixties, after all, the copywriters took this knowledge and rebounded Burger Chef as a place where every table is the family table. To invite mom's toe, actively bring their kids there and remove the stigma you can write better about your customers when you have snippets of wisdom about them. What are they looking for? What are the problems they need solving? Why are they on your website and not on your competitors? Accurately Defining your audience is like hitting the bull's eye in a game of darts. Understand the problem that you solve and who will gain from the value that you create. So imagine that your ideal customer is sitting in a chair in front of you right now. Describe them. Imagine what this person looks like. Were they wearing what is their demeanor like what I sites them. This is the person that you need to inspire to purchase now, right for this person, not for yourself. You exist for your customers, so you should generally be delivering the things they desire. So who is your target customer audience. Is it people with a specific lifestyle like busy moms? Stressed out workers, freelancers or people with a particular preference, like deodorant was no chemicals. Once you know who this person is and what that insight is that you're addressing, you can then talk to them about the benefits of your brand. Your brand benefit could be functional or emotional. Ah, functional benefit could be saving time and money. And the emotional benefit is the feeling that the audience member gets from interacting with you. Once you have a better idea of who your customers are and what kind of benefit they're on the hunt for, you can decide how you'd like to speak to them. You would need entirely different messaging if you were targeting a Harley Davidson fan vs Marketing a yoga teacher training program. So another important consideration is tuned. Brand tone of voice is the way that you communicate about your company. It's the living, breathing personality of your brand. Before you start writing anything, you should have an idea of what your brand personality is, knowing this lenses silky smooth hands the writing process because it will be clear whether it's appropriate or helpful to use puns, jokes or statistics. Designing on tone helped you select the language you use charities and not for profits, tend to use very formal, powerful and evocative matter of fact wording in their communications. Airline brands like British Airways often communicate with a tone that's informal but never over. Familiar to work on your tone of voice, it might help to think of your business like a character. If you imagine it as a celebrity past or present, how would that person act? And what would they be like? Once you have an outline, you can then figure out how you would like to be perceived. Do you wish to come across as passionate, formal or informal, or maybe even a mix of all three passionate brands that their zeal for their subject matter show openly? They don't shy away from taking a personal point of view and convincing others to share it . They use strong verbs to convey an important message. Their enthusiastic, empowering and uplifting like dove, the body shop or toms shoes brands the formal tone of voice strive for tactful neutral messaging that avoids strong language to demonstrate that they admire and respect their audience and treat them with an appropriate level of dignity. This is the approach used by many large corporations, ultra luxury hotels and business to business adverts. Informal brands are often relatable, casual and funny. They aren't scared to poke fun at their brand or topic. They get people to laugh along with them to help great positive associations and become memorable. And they use colloquialisms literally to make their content conversational and accessible. Now let's go through some examples of brands with different tones of voice. Grey Goose is a premium vodka brand, and their tone of voice is formal and sophisticated without being snobbish. Scrolling through their website, you can see that they choose words like unparalleled quality, the very best ingredients and even sip responsibly. Their desired clientele are too refined to chug or drink. They would sip instead. Tom's Shoes is an example of a passionate brand. Founder Blake Mycoskie traveled to Argentina and was overcome by the level of suffering that he encountered and particularly the large number of Children that he saw without shoes . He then went on to create a social brand that would donate one pair of shoes for each one bought the one for one model. The brand's communications use words that are authentic, empowering and hopeful, Moving on to an informal brand. Now one of my favorite clients is a private beach resort on the Caribbean side of Panama called Azul Paradise. The brand's tone is informal, and because the subject matter is a super photogenic beach resort, the copy I create can be his dreamy, conversational and wistful as I please proudly presenting innocent orange juice. UK based drinks makers Innocent have a very clear language, style and tone of voice, its tongue and cheek endearing, knowingly naive. And it's cleared every single customer touch point from their cheeky packaging copy and banana phone customer service center to the name of their headquarters, which is called Fruit Towers. Their personality. Full communications are casual and create a fun, intimate relationship with their audience. Yet another funny brandis Skittles. Sometimes they're post don't even really make sense. What is being communicated, however, is the brand has a real sense of humor and brings out your inner child. The's Brad probably have style guides or rulebooks that outline what kind of language they can and can't use. For instance, in relation to profanity. So perhaps think about making your own rulebook. Remember what you're trying to accomplish. Who? Your audiences and then the method of talking to them that suits you best.
4. All About Your Brand (The Fun Part): onto the fun part. Now, writing all the copy for your brand, as this course was built for all small business owners. I'm going to cover personal branding to which is particularly useful for entrepreneurs and freelancers. The competent of your personal brand include your bio, a portfolio for creatives, how you invoice and your business card. It's basically everything you put your name to your CV or resume with all your work. Experience is essentially marketing copy for your personal brand. You can use it to display whatever you want. You could include your mission statement or your unique selling point, a k A. What's special about you To write your bio, think of 3 to 5 words that describe what you do, who you are and your benefit to the wider world. Use those words to inform everything that you write depending on your sector. You can also be very flexible with all of these elements of your personal brand. There is no one size fits all formula. There's lots of ways that you can communicate who you are and the essence of your personality. I mostly operate in the travel space, so I'm often coming across work from other travel writers and professionals in this industry. An example of a great personal website is this one created by a gentleman by the name of Dust in Maine, the Canadian digital Nomad created the site, dates an adventurer, and it went viral because it was actually a dating website. He presents himself in a factual and informative way, even using graphs and charts, and it caught people's attention because it was vulnerable, honest and human. He wisely also ends the home page scrolling experience with a call to action. This site is essentially a dating resume, and even if it didn't directly score him an adventurous life partner, it got his name out there because of its unusual nature. And it could have only been beneficial for his other business endeavors, which include a tour company in Myanmar, a photography business Onda newsletter that now has over 40,000 subscribers. He's also been interviewed by a handful of international publications. Off the back of this site, feel free to do something unexpected to become gossip worthy in your field or beyond. You can even present your bio as a series of questions and answers, like your very own frequently asked questions. Page, This is how the about page for my personal website Rosie Bell dot net is laid out. It tells perspective, client that my writing is lights and personable without being unprofessional. It breaks up the text and helps visitors imagine that they're witnessing a friendly conversation. Justice brands and companies have consistent themes, slogans, taglines, color schemes and type phones. Your personal brand can, too. In the case of my personal brand, I use a specific light blue tone, along with white or black text in all that I do. It's on the cover of my latest book, and even in this presentation, another visual element that's consistent is palm trees or leaves to invoke a feelings of escapism and play. My tone is always open, friendly and light. These things come together to create my visual brand identity. Remember that there isn't one correct way to display your personal brand information. Your business card could be catchy, ironic or unusual, and your personal website can have as much or as little text as you want. It's all up to you Next up brand names. This section is mainly applicable if you're at the very beginning of your brand journey. Your brand name is one of the most important words for your business, and there are several approaches to help you select yours. So which brand name strategy will you go for? You could up for a geographically inspired name like Patagonia or an acronym like IBM, which stands for International Business machines. Or what a personification name. Be more suitable for your brand, like Captain Morgan or Aunt Jemima. You may also opt for foreign name like Haagen does, which was created to sound Danish. You could choose to highlight your brand purpose, like where your waist, Or would you rather use the founder's name like Heinz and Ben and Jerry's did? Perhaps yours will be a completely invented name that Google a portmanteau or compound name like Instagram, which is a merger of Instant camera and telegram, or Microsoft, which is appointment to a microcomputer and software sites like Word on scrambler dot net could give you a head start, combining different words together. You could go for a descriptive name that's indicative of what it is that you do like PayPal or treat well. Treat well is a platform for booking treatments, Salon and spa appointments to treat yourself well. It used to be called one Honda, which many struggled to spell, and it's arguable that the new name that they have is a much better one. For inspiration. Feel free to have a look in a dictionary or thesaurus, given that there literally the home of words. One thing to keep in mind when selecting a brand name is that it should always allow you to expand your product or service portfolio in the future. If you so desire, this bar saves lives had to eventually change. Their company named to this saves lives once they realize that they wanted to sell more than just bars. The Coworking space startup we Work has had to change his name to the week company as they plan to expand into educational and residential spaces to other important considerations. When choosing your name, our availability and memorability, check that it's available to trademark and that isn't being used by any other brands, especially in your category. Also check that it's available as a dot com or dot org's or don't et you, depending on your type of brand, it shouldn't have any negative or unintended meanings of other languages, and it should be easy to pronounce. Ideally, your about page is one of the most important pages on your website, and it needs to be crafted well when putting together your about page. It's important to write something that people don't see every day. Include the problem that you're solving, how you're solving it and what makes your brand so special and different from the competition and then ended with a call to action. Be crystal clear about who you serve and why. Mediums about page is inviting, and it clearly signals who their customers are and what the benefit of the site is. It's a platform for lovers of words to take a new stories and ideas without distraction from banner ads, sponsored content or anything else that detracts from the reading. Experience about pages should also be interesting. Think about when someone tells you a story in real life. If it's not invigorating, it doesn't hold your attention, and you start looking away. Your eyes glaze over, or you might even start falling asleep. Arrest the audience's attention in the first few seconds, you get it articulate, rials, you end to read their meet the team page by informing you that they're not about the usual blah, blah, that most companies are copywriter Miguel Farida, a k tear Down office. The question that needs to be answered. So who is this guy, anyway? Baron Fig makes high quality notebooks that are beautifully handcrafted. Their attack line is tools for thinkers. Their about page very quickly shows who their desired customer is, as well as the fact that there a hip, lighthearted brand by announcing that they make tools for thinkers and that if you also have thoughts, your finger as notebooks are often used for note making, they display the facts about their company in list form. Design your brand story to be share a ble. And why would someone share your story? Because it resonates with them. It makes them think, feel or smile. It helps some tell a story they already want to tell, or it helps them define themselves to others. The information about you doesn't have to just be on one page, however, you can also include this information on your landing page, as it's often all people will see. My about information is actually scattered all around my personal website right on the landing page. It's easy to skim through and read a little bit about me and all the pies I've had my fingers in. Information is creatively showcased throughout my website, as well as on the about page for inspiration. Looking people that you respected admire. How do they present themselves? Think about the message that you want to convey and try to make it as interesting and memorable as possible. Now that you've written out your personal bio and about page, you need to have an elevator pitch, which is a condensed version of that. You should have this ready in case you need that one person who could propel your business is the next stage as a writer. If I find myself in Elevator with the editor of The New York Times, I'd better have a straight to the point pitch that not only outlines my story idea, but why it's relevant to that publication, and why now and why it needs to be written by me. As is often the case, most opportunities to meet with influential people happen spontaneously and unpredictably. The rising screenwriter who collides the Hollywood producer while waiting in line for a taxi or the hopeful new employees who finds himself in the elevator with the company CEO. By definition, an elevator pitch is a quick, persuasive speech that's used to create interest in a project concept or people. It distills your ideas into the simplest, clearest points of value, highlights the uniqueness and sparks enough curiosity to make the prospect want to hear more. It's called an elevator pitch because it can be delivered during a ride on an elevator. Think of your elevator pitch or elevator speech as a Twitter version of your business plan or proposal. You can use it to get a job or promotion or to land a new investor or client. The Harvard M. I. T. Division of Health Sciences and Technology proposes a simple structure for your elevator pitch. First of all, say the problem, then present your solution. Go on to explain why people should trust you or where the person to solve this problem and talk about your interest in the target group describe your value proposition or the benefits of your product or service. How will people benefit from using or interacting with you as opposed to your competition? lastly, offer a call to action. This could be asking for an appointment, a referral or contact information. There has to be something in it for the listener, so make sure it's compelling and remember to keep it brief and under six sentences. Now that you've compressed your bio into an elevator pitch, you should know what your USP is. The USB or unique selling point is what different shades your brand and makes it stand out from the rest. Are you the fastest first? The only, perhaps with the cheapest or have the highest quality. Are your ingredients rare? Are you a writer that never misses deadlines? Look at some popular brand US bees to inform yours. Abbas used the fact that they were in second place to hurts to position themselves as harder working and therefore more worthy of your car rental money. The USB date advised was, We're number two. We try harder. Domino's Pizzas USB that you get fresh hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less or it's free. They may not be the best, but they're reliable and fast. Make a list of all the things that differentiate your brand product or service research the competition and then compared the most unique angle against your audiences needs. Are there any customer needs that your competitors haven't filled yet or issues that they haven't appealed to yet? Put all of this information together and think about how best to apply it to your business . A USB is more than a slogan, and it should be focused on what customers love or need. After all, it's the single most compelling reason that they will buy from you up next. Attack lines and slogans, which aren't just for fancy shmancy t v efforts. By the way, what you see here is rosemary water, a pioneering drinks brand with your tag line right on the bottle. A drink to remember rosemary is often associated with boosting memory, so this is a very fitting tagline for the spread. Your attack line is a short and powerful compression of your identity into a single pithy phrase that reinforces what makes you valuable to customers and stresses the differences between you and your competitors. It represents the tone and feeling that you want for your products or services, and it's often part of your company. Graphics like the logo, the website s CEO title or packaging, and it stays with you all the time. An example of a tagline is BMWs the ultimate driving machine, or Disney's The happiest place on Earth. That hasn't changed in years, and it's one of the most recognizable attack lines in the world. Other tackling examples are unspool. Ashes, beautiful free images and pictures. Spotify eyes, music for everyone, Kellogg's See You at breakfast and Nike's Just Do It. Think of it as an even more condensed elevator pitch. The average tackling length for S and P 500 companies is four words. Taglines should be evocative and memorable, and there's nothing to stop you from creating a tagline for your personal brand, either. Many thought leaders have author and tech entrepreneurs. Seth Godin's tagline is Go Make Something Happen and perhaps one of the most infamous entrepreneurs on the planet, Richard Branson. His is screw it. Just do it. Slogans, on the other hand, are more temporary. They may change often and can be used on Lee for one product or one campaign, while a company tagline is used consistently for a company as a whole. So to reiterate tag lines are long standing by and statements that represent an idea or promise slogans are tied to certain promotions or campaigns. You could very well use your USP as your tagline. If you could compress your benefit and expertise into one sentence, what would it be to write a slogan, highlight a key benefit, try to entertain or inform and make it memorable? Would you remember this Being created can be a tough job. So test the idea that you come up with on friends and family to see if they're sticky and effective. This next section explores a crucial part of your brand. Their products to start off will tackle product names and enjoy examples from some very inventive friends. First Up Benefit Cosmetics This brand has a rather tongue in cheek approach to naming their products. Veer Riel is the name of one of their mascara's. They also have a bomb called the Poor Professional and a Hawaiian branded bronze air called Do the Hula. So Open Glory describes themselves as a fun, fresh, fearless, fantastic British beauty brand with the belief that while beauty absolutely matters, it doesn't matter. Absolutely, they don't take themselves too seriously. And for this reason. Their portfolio includes products with attention grabbing names like Sexy Mother Pucker, lip gloss and what appealing peel off face mask and, of course, the drama Clean cleanser. They certainly aren't shy about using a punch or two for their product names. Customers can get their hands on their spectacular. It's galactic glaze lip gloss that comes in three space inspired shades. Starship Silver back to the Fuchsia or Blaze of Glory. These names give their products a strong sense of personality and humor, which is in line with their playful tone of voice. Ben and Jerry's is also undeniably funny. The brand's communications often managed to be lighthearted even when addressing serious issues. They showed their support for ex President Obama with their yes pecan flavor, which was a play on his election slogan. Yes we can. The product packaging was yet another device for storytelling. It featured Obama's face. They have shown their commitment to people on planet causes through their product names, too. They're one sweet world Flavor was a collaboration with Save Our Environment dot or GTA, and imagine World Peace was introduced in partnership with the John London estate. Ben and Jerry's takes any opportunity that it can to inject funny storytelling into its products. This playful approach works so well, a partly because their flavor combinations tend to be a bit off the wall, like sweet potato pie and peanuts popcorn. They also have a habit of outsourcing their product names and often customers to help them choose, which will cover more of later. When we talk about social media, another company with a clever set of copywriters is ethic. I think is a personal care brand that you guessed it is ethical. It's completely plastic free and use a sustainable and natural ingredients. The names for their individual products are witty and smart like in your face for their face washing damage control for their dry hair shampoo bar. Sometimes simplicity is also the best strategy. It doesn't get any more straightforward than water in the box. This company was fed up of the countless plastic water bottles that end up, described it all over the place and decided to repackage water into something that's a little bit better for the environment, better for health and accessible to everyone. So some considerations when choosing product names, what strategy will use for this and any future products. Will you go for a descriptive, functional name that's self explanatory and rather obvious? Or a suggestive name that tells the consumer something? Whether product in a creative manner, a descriptive name would be hot red for a color of lipstick? A suggestive name is Ruby Woo, which is Max Signature Red Lipstick. It tells you that it's red, and it suggests that it helps you go. Wow, it's important to do your research. There is no point doing lots of legwork or trademarking your product or brand name only to find out that it's already associated with another company. Your product name needs to say something to customers, the second becoming contact with it. So avoid acronyms or abbreviations. Need to be spelled out or explained. Make your product name easy to spell and pronounce and make sure it's memorable. What's going to make someone look twice at your product on the shelf or choose it on an online store? Is it attractive? Is a distinctive Will it stand out in a crowd of similar offerings? If the name you want isn't available, you can also tweet the spelling in your favor. If the product is going to be sold internationally. Considered what the name means in other languages and cultures. You wouldn't want something that's offensive or distractive. Also, keep your tone of voice and brand personality in mind. When you think of how to name and describe your products, the name should be representative of who you are as a brand on to packaging. Now, if you have a physical product, your packaging is just as important as the item itself. Packaging obviously has functional benefits, like protecting your goods from damage at all stages of the supply chain. It has some additional benefits to and can be viewed as another avenue for storytelling. It can even speak volumes about your company values. For instance, if you use recycled materials or paper packaging over plastic, distinctive, recognizable packaging simplifies the decision making process for your customers and could be the one thing that's ways customers towards you. It's essentially a bill of what the communicates your products, attractiveness instructions for use as well as any legal required labeling with package, and you can effectively communicate your USB right at the point of sale. Our X bar, for example, draws from knowledge that consumers want clear labeling on food products and riel ingredients. They communicate their value position by stating boldly that one of their product ingredients is no B s. This immediately differentiates them from the hordes of protein bars and packaged foods that have ingredients that no one can pronounce. This saves lives is unethical food brand that raises funds to help Children all around the world. The brand name itself is evocative and gives customers an immediate reason to purchase. Their mission is written right on their packaging, their boxes say. Every time you buy a bar, we give life saving nutrition to a child in need on by a bar feed a child. So open Glory has very immediately recognizable brand elements, and their packaging always follows a similar format. Their brand color of pink alongside vintage in black and white imagery To go with your tongue and cheek product names, the white space in a product can be used to tell your story, too. It's not just for the things that need to be there, like your brand name logo or any nutrition information, which may be legally required depending on your industry. Lick frozen yogurt great made by the way, has the story of the founders on the back of their parts, as well as charity affiliations and even competition information. Take a photo with your lick to get free licks for you and all of your friends. Now let's talk about product descriptions. Ah, product description is simply an explanation of the products in your online store. They could be funny and witty or serious and straightforward. They could even tell a story to make them more relatable. So to craft great part descriptions focus on the benefit of this product. How will it improve their lives? You can use size guides and other helpful tool to make your descriptions as appealing as possible to your customers. You should always fully explain the product, what it does, how it works and any instructions for use fill any gaps of the potential buyers may have about the product. A part of description is your chance to tell people wire company is the best and why they should purchase your product or your USB. Who are the people that are gonna buy from you and what are they looking for, right, as if you're answering that question, No two products of the same. So never use identical part descriptions for all of your product line. Does Booker content isn't great for Google ranking, either? The best part of description will not only convince customers that they want your product, but that they need it and now increased this appeal by heading the exclusivity uniqueness or evolutionary nature. Is it it must have? Should they get it before it's gone? Isn't part of a small batch? Didn't receive a stamp of approval by a highly respected magazine, trade journal or public figure? There are certain words that, naturally illicit a strong emotional response. Use power roids that cell to convince customers. Take that leap and purchase. These include amazing, stunning, spectacular, sensational, happy and breathtaking. If you're selling online, you should be optimizing for search engines, so carry out keyword research to see what best words to use to sell your product. Part descriptions are important, and you can have them on websites, even when you aren't directly selling there. Kahlo, a Dutch brand known for the stock cubes, takes an unusual approach to product company on its website. Instead of listing, ingredients were talking about how delicious it's organic low fat rice cakes are. It treats visitors to a poem on each page. This method contributes to an altogether warm and delightful tone of voice. This strategy is a tad unexpected and a bit random, but the brand doesn't actually sell any products on its website. The set is purely for promotional purposes, so it doesn't need to actually rely on actionable copy, and it can afford to be a bit playful. Innocent. The ever playful drinks maker uses that same chickie tone of voice that we've come to know and love in their descriptions. One of their kids movies is listed as having zing ping and probably some cutting. While those obviously aren't real ingredients, it's probably something that will pop into your mind when you see them on the shelf. When you are selling online the copy that you you should be compelling and actionable, and it helps if it's somewhat jumps off the page. Online clothing retailer A sauce is well known for their quirky and bizarre on brand clothing. They often use a self aware and sarcastic tone of voice, justify their somewhat up their fashion decisions or just a generally delight and become sticky in the minds of potential customers. It shows the brands sense of fun. Feel free to think outside the box and, most importantly, make your copy memorable.
5. Sizzling Social Media: onto the wonderful and often daunting world of social media. Next, having a social media presence is so important for your brand, not only because people spend on average two hours of their day using social networks, but because they're great for storytelling. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest are the main platforms, but there are so many more avenues to promote and talk about your brand. The audiences are different, each one, and they also use them in different ways. Social media is also particularly powerful, as it's a direct link to your current and prospective customers with no middleman. It's essentially a database of people that you could sell to. The great thing about social media is that there is a community for absolutely every niche , so you can meet your audience where they already are. So to start your social media journey, you'll need a handle or branded user name where possible, tried to use the same handle across the board. If you're at the early stages of your business and looking to choose a social media handle , use this site like name check to check the availability of your desired name across 60 social networks and domains. You can use your brand or company name on its own. But many handles are also descriptive and that they instantly say what the person or thing does. Like Lindsay Alexander, writer cereal guides or all those shoes. Your handle can also communicate more than just your brand name and what sector urine feed . A social accessory brand with the mission of eradicating world hunger, uses feed projects for their handle and their whips at your URL instead of feed handbags or feet accessories. This communicates with their company on a mission, a mission which they wish to highlight even before their products. The handle that I use is the Beach Bell, which was the name of a beach and tropical travel block that I used to run. I find that the names still works for me today, as it suggests a sunny disposition and preference for warm destinations, which are still the focus of most of my travel writing. Now I use this handle across all of my social networks Instagram, Twitter and it's the Euro for my Pin Trust and Facebook pages. Hashtags are also quite important. It's advisable to use your own brand hashtag and encourage fans do the same. Seventh generation and environmentally conscious cleaning part of company uses the hashtags generation good and come clean across all their social media endeavors. Having your own hashtag means you can use social platforms as a search engine to see when and how people are talking about you. So display your hashtag in your bio or somewhere visible to publicize it and get people to use it. Instagram is huge, and most brands have a presence there. One billion people use instagram every month, of which more than 500 million uses every day. That's quite a few people who could have access to your brand. You can also sell directly on instagram, but this requires that you convert your account from a personal to a business profile, which is linked to Facebook. Having trouble post is obviously very handy if your business is e commerce. Writing on instagram is much faster than putting together a block post. You can use the photo captions to include strategic calls to action or to ask simple open ended questions to encourage engagement. Be sure to place your most important information first, in case people are whizzing through, be it a call to action, New product, launch competition, sale or new blood post update show value sooner rather than later. While it's important to have a presence on the platform, don't just post or 11 constant just for the sake of it. What are the pillars of your brand? Make sure that everything that you post falls within them. For instance, British Airways High Life magazines. Five Pillars are inspiration, connection reservation opinion and destination. So everything that they publish relates to these things. What do people come to your instagram page to see or learn? The bio spaces? Prime real estate. You have very little time to convince people who land on your page to follow you. Engage with your content and then purchase your products. Your bio should provide your name. Explain who you are and what you do and show a bit of personality and provide a way for people to get in touch with you. Instagram imposes a 150 character limit for your bio so you don't have that much real estate to work with. Which 2 to 3 words describe you in a nutshell. Include those words. Even though Instagram is a visual platform. You can absolutely use words to get your message across in the captions and in the images themselves. You can use APS like grid to create an attractive gallery that incorporates on image copy for an attractive and curated grid pattern. Think of your instagram account like your own personal magazine or gallery. The some of the images is just a important as each individual one. Your overall gallery instantly communicates what kind of company you are if you're colorful , optimistic, moody or creative, Facebook has become the home of opinion and facts, making it a great place. Promote blood, postman website and share links. It supports both visual and longer written content, unlike Instagram and Pinterest, where users may ignore text heavy posts and captions having a fist that business pages also highly recommended as it serves as another website or lending page with all the information people need to know about your company and you could even sell directly from your page with a Facebook shop. The best way to try to get engagement on Facebook is to be engaging. Share things your fans will generally love and be interested in. Tell stories post about trending topics. Post behind the scenes shelves from your business and marketing indifference. Post viral photos and means. Ask pounds about business decisions. Post photos of your products in use, or give shoutouts to your loyal fans. Writing for Twitter is a whole other ball game, obviously due to the 140 character constraint. So you really have to condense what it is that you're trying to say to make your messages go further. Combined them with images. Tweet with images for much better than just plain text. So do you use both where you can? Many brands used Twitter to ask open ended questions or for Poles, they said, a challenge people to actively get involved. Ben and Jerry's also regularly asks for flavor ideas, and it works for them. The kudos of naming a part of that thousands of people will enjoy is quite attractive, and this gets people to engage with them and spread their brand story even further. So outsourcing ideas to your customers is another strategy to name your products. Many companies also used Twitter as a customer service tool. Ben and Jerry's replies to every single tweet, and it's often something charming and cheeky as If you've just spoken to an actual friend, even the people that you follow can tell a story. KFC, for instance, Onley follows 11 people, all five members of the Spice Girls and some random guy's called Herb. They're chicken is all about herbs and spices, and that's it. It's subtle, but it's a calculated use of humor that complements the rest of their laid back copy. Twitter facilitates a kind of intimacy for brands where they can blend in with people and develop their own personas. Unlike ads are promoted posts on Facebook. Ah, user might actually respond to a brand's tweet without actually thinking that it's an ad. You don't only have to use Twitter to send out robotic information. You can have some fun with your brand to your post could be a bit more diverse on Twitter than they can on Instagram, for instance, as Twitter is the home of funny now, timely memes and jokes do very well here. There are millions of tweets going out every second, so humor relevance could make yours memorable, and we'll relevant. However, of course, stick to what makes sense for your brand. This course has looked into Instagram Facebook and Twitter, mainly, but, of course will be up to use. Decide which social channels that you use. So now how do you select your social media platforms? You should compose your copy according to which platform you're using and choose your platform according to where your customers hang out. What's up of business you have and where your competitors are. If you're visually driven business like fashion or art, then video and photo sharing platforms are going to be your best friend. If it's hard facts that excite your customers, then talk to them where they like to listen and read. If you're an author or publisher, it makes the most sense to join. Good reads. A great idea is to insert yourself as the answer to questions. People are already asking on site Sykora and read it regarding your target market. If your target audiences stay at home moms with spare time and disposable income, then Pinterest might be a good location to meet your tribe. Pinterest is wildly popular among women. A staggering 41% of all women online use it. It's taken the online shopping industry by storm, and it's basically a no brainer. for e commerce brands as up to 61% of all users have made a purchase after finding a product there. Pinterest works really well for bloggers, but it might not be as beneficial for a business to business company with a more mature clientele. If you're a B two B company, Lincoln would be better suited to you than Tumbler. For example, Lincoln is the number one platform for B two B marketing, as it has over 590 million registered users, of which over 50% are educated to graduate level. If your target market is young adults and teenagers, they're more likely to be found on Snapchat or YouTube. Also, think about where your competitors engage with your customers and audiences. How active are they on each platform? And how engaged are their followers? If the people that you're competing with are finding success in a platform, you need to try to be there, too. So some final considerations on social media copy wherever you choose to focus your social activity. Some general rules do apply. Social media is part of your business and shouldn't be all of it. Don't obsess over followers and likes and always always go where customers are. Don't have accounts on every social media platform just for the sake of it. Choose one or two and do them well. Factor in the amount of time that you're willing to commit to social media before creating accounts. It's right off with different ones. And then watch to see where you have the most success. Weed out the ones that don't serve you and find your best one or two. This way, go where the audience and the engagement is.
6. Promotional Materials: This next chapter covers the promotional materials that you'll create to get the message out about your launches, new products, promotions and your brand in general to generate interest and sales. Essentially, first up press releases an important PR tool. Oppressive leases, a written communication that reports specific but brief information about events, circumstance or other happening. It serves three marketing and promotional purposes. First of all, letting the media know about an event hoping it will pass the information along. Secondly, letting the media know about your business, hoping a reporter will see a story in your press release and write an actual news article about it or to help promote your business online by a blog's websites and social networks. It's direct readership. Publicity, personally says, should follow a specific Generalistic format and start with your brand logo or event or product imagery at the top. There are two types of releases, one that can be circulated in action immediately and ones that are shared with media outlets ahead of their publication date that would be called in an embargoed release. If it could already be circulated, it should say for immediate release benefits and embargoed release it should include the date that it's embargoed until or when it could be published. After the release, Information comes catchy headline text. It should be compelling and tight and steer away from exclamation marks to sensationalize up. Next is a subheading, which is essentially the second most important thing. Anyone reading it needs to know it should real them in and notice. Repeat what's in the heading already. You could use a quote something catchy or informative here and write it in a bold front. The date line comes before the main content, and this identifies the date and location of the release include the city state month and year. The actual content of the release should start with a clear, strong first line separately. The first line should also be strong enough to stand on its own in case readers stop there , and the last paragraph should wrap it up with a compelling final sentence. After the last paragraph of the release, you should include an about paragraph or boilerplate. This is a promotional soundbite or short positive statement about your company, which may include you Attack line, USB, the scope of your business or other relevant information. Wrap up of contact information. So if any media outlets are interested, they can get in touch with you to request additional information the very bottom of the release page say end or have £3 signs, or what you may better recognizes the hashtag sign to signal that it's the end of the page . In terms of the content of your press release, make sure you're answering the WHO what, why, when, where and how questions who you are. What this newsworthy topic is, why you're sending the release and why your endeavor matters when the subject of the releases taking place, where your company, your event is based, and how the subject of your release adds value or helps your readers when you know what to include in your press release and how to structure it, your PR material will be more official, incredible and useful for readers. So some general rules about press releases before you send it out. Be sure to double check all links, facts, statistics, data and contact information Before you publish, you should keep a press release to one page and usually about 500 words. You can also use your company colors or identifiable characteristics of your business as a release is an extension of your marketing efforts. It should also be noted that a press release is not a guarantee marketing tool. All you can do is write one and send it out to the universe and hope it gets picked up. Trying is obviously better than not trying, however, up next, a me ticket or press kit. This is a promotional tool that helps raise awareness, showcase your previous work and explain your services. It's a must for creative businesses like print and online magazines, bloggers, podcasters and YouTubers. Essentially, you're me. Tickets should be everything outsiders need to know about your business. Packaged into a neat, tidy, creative and informative document ready for presentation. It should be something that you can probably present to represent you. It should include things like your rates, website traffic or sales figures, your production schedule or editorial calendar. If you have one, your core values or your why audience demographics the services you offer or how you can collaborate as well as contact details. Think of it as a brochure or resume for your business, or an expanded, visually appealing business card that lets someone know how to work with you and what makes them want to work with you. This is where you can shout from the rooftop about your accomplishments. Any awards you want oppressive recognition. You achieved quotes from happy customers or influential people. Draw from material that you've written about your brand, your USB, your tagline, your brand. Approach your products. Put that in here. If you're unfamiliar with me. Tickets. Search for examples of businesses in your industry to get a feel for them. Every large magazine has a ME ticket from Vogue to Travel and Leisure magazine. You're Me ticket could be beautifully compressed into one page or resemble a magazine itself, with your information spread out on multiple pages. Can Va has a treasure chest of stunning templates for great Me tickets, which you can customize to suit your Brian style and identity posters and fliers? Now, at some point, your marketing Jonah, you're going to need to create a poster or flyer to create buzz or bring attention to an event or launch. These don't have to be physical posters that you print out. They can also be digital. In most cases, they will be a Flyer is a single page document that basically acts like a sales person when you're not there to sell yourself. A flyer has three competence, which are the headline, the details and the fine print. The headline is the main and largest text element in the design. This is where emphasis should be placed, and it should resonate with your target audience immediately. Start with a bang. The details are what, when and where. What information does someone need to know in order to do what your poster is asking of them? The fine print is self explanatory. It's the nitty gritty details, like how much tickets cost or where they can be bought, or any terms and conditions. The general rule when writing copy for flowers and posters is less is more. This isn't the place for long essays about your brand story here you need to use great copy that straight to the point and attractive. Generally, a poster of something with Scott to be grasped in the blink of an eye, so the copy has to be short and sharp, so don't write too much. Remember that you're writing a flyer, not an encyclopedia. Your mission is to say as much as possible in this few words as possible. You simple words that are easy to understand. If it doesn't make sense of the reader, it's a waste of space. Big words and technical terms. Make your flyer hard work to read, and it's confusing. Don't make your reader have to whip out of the source so they could work out the meaning of your copy cause they might not come back. Keep it simple. You is one of the most powerful words that you can use to write an effective flyer. People take extra notice when they feel like you're speaking directly to them. Focus on the main benefit and then the features. A future is a factual statement about a product or service. The benefit is the advantage that this future has on people's lives. Why should they care when you're writing? Copy? Always look at your business and perspective of people that you're trying to attract. What do they want? What's beer problem? What will they respond to? Once you've asked these questions on their behalf, you can supply the answers with copy that highlight the benefits to them for your couple to be effective. It's important that you understand what and who it's for. Deal with your prospects needs directly capture their attention with a snappy, catchy headline, Find your greatest benefit and police it front and center. There's no better way to catch your prospects, either with a prominent headline. It's arguably the most important part of your flyer. Urgency is a very valuable promotional tool. Simply saying that there's a time limit or a limited supply can really boost the response that you get from your flyers. You can offer a discount that's only good until a specific date. For example, a little pressure can go a long way. If you design your post or flower to evoke emotion, it's much more likely to be shared and have attention paid to it. A single word in your headline could make people stop, think or feel Something free is one of the most powerful words you can use in any kind of emotional campaign. Other powerful words are love Save results guarantee. Now you can the secrets to unlock finally insider proven easy and discover leveraging emotional triggers. An ad copy is a particularly effective way to connect with your audience. The five. Basic emotions are happiness, sadness, surprise and anger and disgust. Humans respond to each of these emotions differently, but they all incite them to take action. Select your words carefully. What can you tell them to make the cash register ring? This is more of design element, but make sure that your copy certainly the heading can be easily read from a distance. The top priority of a poster is generally to expose someone to an event. Key information should be easy to read from a distance to help draw people to the poster or flyer include a call to action. The goal of every poster is to expose people to something, so an explicit call to action is vital, however beautiful. A well designed your poster or flyer is If it doesn't include a call to action, it won't serve its purpose. What exactly is it that you want your prospect to do? Is it to buy a product set up for a service, get tickets or visit your website? Don't leave any room for ambiguity. Check for errors and then double check them again. A spelling mistake is like a dripping tap, small but hugely distracting for help designing your poster or flyer. Can VA also has lots of templates, and you can even search for industry or type of event moving on to impact on sustainability reports. Now, if you're a social brand in that your USB is that you do good or give back, it makes sense to talk about how much good you do or give back. This is one that you might not have considered, but creating an impact or sustainability report is another great way to talk about your company and dig deep into your goal or your why. And it doesn't have to be a snooze fest of a document, either. This could be something that you create and display proudly on your website, where you talk about your impact on people or planet causes. Cuddle and Kind is an ethically produced, hand knitted, dull company that feeds Children in need. They create the giving book, which is an annual impact report in the style of a magazine. It uses facts and figures coupled with moving personal stories to humanize the brand and connect people to their mission. A report of this kind is a way of showing that you're truly living and breathing your values. Tom Shoes also creates a giving book, which explains the story behind how they create an impact, shining a light on their giving partners and the company's origins. Based on the founders Mission Outdoor Apparel brand Patagonia publishes an environmental and social initiatives guide each year. It's a comprehensive magazine style spread, which lays out the full breath of their social and environmental efforts, and it's available online and in print, in their stores, printing out of magazines. Dasburg might be costly for a new small business, but it's certainly something that could be created easily online and then showed on your website and distributed to media outlets. Sustainability reporting improves transparency and can help to soften your brand in the mind's of consumers, who increasingly expect brands to do good Moving on swiftly to display ads. Now, display advertising is characterized of either graphic or text banner ads that display in specifically designated areas of a website or social media platform. Digital display advertising comes in various formats. There are static image banners, gifts and animated Hey, html five. Unlike search ads, display ads aren't made. People who are actively looking for something so they're essentially disruptive. What's also hard about writing copy for display ads is that there's so much you want to say , but so little space to craft copy for a banner ad that converts well, keep these seven things in mind. Number one. Make the primary benefit clear. What exactly are you offering? Number two. Member of the users objectives. Nobody clicks on an ad because they think, Oh, I just can't get enough of Bana rats. They click on them because they need something or want to solve a problem. Help your prospects. Visualize solving their problem by using your business. Tell them how you're going to help them. Your headline should focus on the consumer's main goal, be it creating website, losing weight, selling their car or getting rid of acne. Number three. Don't make false promises. This will only come back to bite you later. When you can't deliver no before includes social proof by using numbers in your ad campaign to show your impressive customer base. If you already have one. Number five questions are your friend. Questions are a powerful instrument to stop the user and make them think Number six use deadlines to create a level of urgency. Words like Hurry fast now or limited time. Generate more clicks. Number seven. Have one clear, concise call to action. You should only be asking your prospect to do one thing, and that's to click or sign up or by not share comment. Like what? Sign up and by.
7. Wonderful Websites: in this chapter, we'll take a look at some wonderful websites. Your website is your calling card, and it's highly recommended. Every business has one. People go to search engines and not phone books when in need of products and services, and often your business website is the first impression that you'll make. This is where all your storytelling may take. Place your tone, visuals, word choices, colors and products are right there for all to see. My personal website is the first place where all prospective clients can find out about my values and how I may be of service to them. It's important to have a social media presence in addition to your website, not instead of because your website is the one place that's truly yours and you control of your unique personality and benefits. It's one of the few places that you truly own. This is where you get to really sing your brands, praises with all the bells and whistles. If you got testimonials from happy customers, they can take center stage here, scroll through. Websites in particular are really great for telling a story incrementally from your white to your who and your how and schooling as much less of a commitment than clicking on different pages. Wandering Aim Feli is a membership community for freelance creatives who want to grow their businesses without burning out. Their website is basically designed and it talks you through the company, and by the time you're done scrolling, you know exactly what the benefit of joining them is and then entered the call to action. A free seven day trial. Your home page should already communicate what you're about. In just a few words, it gets the bulk of your traffic, so it's crucial that converts as money. Visitors into leads and hopefully customers website tend to have high bounce rates, which means that visitors leave one on the home page itself. For this reason, you need to create something compelling to make them want to visit the other corners of your site and see what else you have to offer. This website for new modacruz does this quite well. They had at the Valley position or the main benefit, which is finding community. Then they had a main future, which is the number of digital nomads that will be in attendance and then they have a video to entertain you while you're there. The most successful home pages communicate the benefits instantly. Your home page of landing page should have an immediate value position and a call to action immediately. Yes, I said immediately. Twice have a look at this website for Articulate, a UK based inbound marketing company. First they tell you what they do in the news. A call to action. Get your free marketing score, which is really a win win for the customer. They convinced the site mistress to engage with them by offering a free incentive from the get go. Here's an example of a powerful home page that does what it says on the tin without you even having to scroll. It's for WiFi Tried a company that one's work in trouble programs for digital nomads. Beside is attractive and also simple. Sometimes it isn't all about the bells and whistles. Another great home page here is for room. This is also a service provided for location independent entrepreneurs and their landing page includes the slogan and a call to action. Make this life a wonderful adventure. Then there was a brief synopsis. Rome is an international network of co living spaces and then in bold book. Now the Hacker Paradise Home page is also very complete and shows that they have a triple value position, working remotely, traveling the world and meeting your peeps in your knowingly and formal tone of voice. They also have an entire page dedicated to hiding their manifesto, and their playful voice really comes alive here. Announcing your views of the world is a great way to build an audience around belief when thinking about copy for your website s CEO. Headlines and method descriptions shouldn't be overlooked either, as they're also important avenues. Talk about your company and improve your search rankings. Take luxury brand nausea, for example. Their headline is Nausea Premium lingerie with a social impact Do good underwear Ethical served run finished years s CEO headline is finished here. Product environment people They publicize their mission right there so that anyone who resonates with it we'll see them for that and not confuse them as just another surf wear company. The S E O headline is a good place to stick your USB. You're competing with millions of websites that those few lines really do have to work to help put your side together. Here's a checklist of 10 competence for all websites. Number one. You never get a second chance at a first impression within three seconds. Your site needs to communicate what you have to offer. Number two. Who are you? And why should people Care? Site Visitor shouldn't have to become detectives to figure out who you are and what it is that you do clearly state your name and some of your products or services right on the home page. You could refer back to the section on bios and about pages for assistance with this Number three. But central customers want to know about the benefits of buying from you because that's what's gonna compel them to stick around. Number four. After you say that your benefits go into greater detail about the features of your product or your service is number five, your contact information should be easy to find. You wouldn't want to lose a customer because they don't know how to reach you. You can also use contact forms. Number six. Speak the language of your customers right for them, not for yourself, over what you like. You might have modeled your business around your own needs, but you're not the one who need to be convinced to make a purchase. Don't just talk about yourself, even on your about page. Identify and refer to a common pain point for your customers and briefly explain what you can do to alleviate this pain. Number seven. Most people are visual, so use high quality images and videos to sweeten the experience that vistors have on your site. Just like in the Nomad Cruise. Example. Number eight Social Proof in success indicators like customer testimonials and awards, helped to build trust. Where possible include names and photos with testimonials to give an extra credibility. People love to hear stories from real people. Number nine S E O can seem like an overwhelming barrage of technical jargon and scary acronyms, but the basics will help get your site found. Use relevant keywords throughout your text. Put in plenty of links. Name your page titles and URLs correctly and employ the magic of images and videos. Number 10 include 2 to 3 calls to action on your home page and place them in spots that are easy to find. Calls to action should be visually striking ideally in a color that contrasts from the color scheme of your home page. While still fitting in with the overall design examples of call to action copy our sign up , make an appointment, register today or try it for free. It's also worth noting that having a block on your website is an important part of your content marketing strategy. Writing Block Post will be covered separately in a different course.
8. Newsworthy Newsletters: These letters help your business by increasing your number of potential customers, creating exposure, driving traffic to your website, and growing your database, which is actually a very valuable asset. Studies show the consumers needs to be exposed to your product six to eight times before they make a decision to buy. So having a weekly or monthly newsletter helps you put your business name in front of customers repeatedly. You get to keep your brand in front of customers who buy infrequently. And people might even forward a newsletter to friends if there's something in it that's newsworthy. In order to have actual people to send these dazzling emails to, you'll want to start working on building your email list. This is essentially a collection of individuals who are interested enough in you to receive updates and offers. These people are already convinced about your brand and your mission, and therefore, they're much easier to sell to you via newsletter. Because of general data protection regulation or GDPR, you can't just email people willy nilly. They need to give you their permission for you to email them. So you have to actively invite and convinced them to subscribe. If you have an online store, it could be that you collect email addresses automatically when someone makes a purchase. But if you're not selling anything, you'll have to get their e-mail addresses the old fashion way. By asking for it. You can invite people to sign up for your newsletter and a number of ways, like with a dedicated email newsletter page, website pop-ups and banners, and you can also offer incentives. Now let's look at examples of each approach and how they've been done. Well. One of the most impressive email opt-in pages I've ever come across is from honey copy. It's a dedicated landing page with the sole mission of getting people to part with their email addresses. What makes it so great is that it clearly states the benefit of signing up who doesn't want to make three times more money. The site itself is just different in terms of layout and the value position is strong. Male chimp and convert kid are great places to help you craft your email opt-in page. If you don't already have one. Once you've created that page shared on Twitter, LinkedIn, or wherever you get traffic. Many brands have newsletter pop-ups that appear as news a visitor arrives on a website. Pop up may be a small box or take over the entire page and it's done to capture visitors email before they go. Probably the most common approach for newsletter sign-up forms is have a banner on a website sidebar or Footer. It's a good idea to put email sign-up forms on more than one page of your website, on the homepage, About page, newsletter page, the bottom of every article or guide, and a few other places to people might need to see your email sign-up form a few times and learn more about you by or your website's decide if they want to subscribe themselves. So have several problems dotted all over the place. This website for recess is not only visually stunning, but users are shown a clear newsletter sign-up call out at the beginning and at the end of the scrolling experience. Banners or pop-ups can be added to your site easily if you use WordPress. Male chimp, which is a powerhouse in email marketing, has lots of WordPress plugins to easily incorporate your newsletter into your site. Another way that companies build your email list is by offering incentives like free e-books, which require email addresses to send or download. These are also called lead magnets. They are also sometimes called ethical bribes. And they are a valuable resource that you create for your target audience and give away for free in exchange for their email addresses. Bear in mind that this could lead to an email list people who only want free stuff. So make sure everything that you send them in the newsletters is relevant and in line with what they signed up for. Some newsletter sign-up form best practices. Now, there's nothing more uninspiring than simply saying, sign up to our newsletter. Why should they build your sign-up message to convert with a clear call to action and benefit. Clearly say the advantages of signing up. What value are you offering? What's the incentive? Is it money off? Interesting articles, free incentives, exclusivity, recipes. Always be clear about what email subscribers will receive from you and nobody wants to get spammed. So let them know how often you'll be emailing them. Remote worksite remote. Okay. Even goes as far as to let users choose how often they'd like to receive emails, have a clear frequency. It's up to them to decide if it suits them or not. Make your newsletter sign-up messages stand out within your website. Every site has one, so make them look at yours. B2b marketing agency velocity partners, plays on the ubiquitous nature of newsletters and urges visitors to opt into our crap. Also add social proof if you can mention how many other people already signed up to this newsletter, because thousands of people can't be wrong right? Now that you've suitably learned people towards your email list, what will you say to them? What's gonna make your newsletter actually newsworthy? Let's look at content now. So to start with, the headline of your newsletter is the most important part. Can you guess why? Because that's what's going to convince someone to open it or not. It has the tough job of convincing recipients to take the leap and click. The subject line isn't enticing weirdos. One-click. It's as simple as that. Your goal should be to create a headline that's impossible not to open. What will make your customers curious enough to say, Tell me more. So here's the challenge. Strives to create the most interesting sentence that person sees in your inbox that day. Think about that. Remember that you're not just writing for the sake of lining up letters alongside each other. You're writing to convince people of something and it's better that you do it without irritating, boring them, or better yet, without them feeling like you're selling anything to them at all, they should feel like they're getting something out of getting close to you by giving you their hard-earned money or time. Zoom in on what's in it for them. Of the promotional emails I received on Gmail. Let's look at the ones I actually opened. The Canvas. Email stood out because it's personal and personalized email subject lines boost clicks by around 14%. Yoga International email attracted me because well, who can say no to a deal? Sales discounts and offers work really well in subject lines. The BBC headline reels me and by confirming that it's discussion point and it makes me curious to know why human beings have a natural desire for closure. We don't like having gaps in our knowledge. So you can leverage this desire for closure by leaving your subject line open-ended. So subscribers will be curious like a cliffhanger that can only be satisfied by opening the e-mail. Open-ended questions are particularly effective at Peking curiosity. This email from Quora was not only the best thing I received in my inbox that day, but it's unexpected and it made me think about something I never knew I wanted to know. There are a couple of strategies that you can keep in mind to craft email headlines. People won't be able to resist. You can play on Curiosity. People's fear of missing out, common pain points, vanity, greed, or use humor to catch their eye. You can make subscribers curious by asking a question, promising something interesting or simply saying something that sounds strange or unusual. The fear of missing out as a psychological principle that's very hard to resist. You can use this fear in your subject lines by adding an element of scarcity or limited availability and urgency or limited time. Subject lines with words like urgent, breaking, important, or alert are proven to increase email open rates. If you understand what your customers are, you should be aware of what your pain points are. Used, those pain points to get subscribers to open your emails by solving their problem for them. Offer them a solution that coupling them save time or money. People love to be liked, accepted, and even admired by others as just part of who we are. That's why some of the most clever subject lines play on vanity. Promise something that makes the subscriber look or feel better and attract attention or admiration. You can usually expect to see an increase in your click rates whenever you offer a discount on your subject line. Even if people don't think they need your item, buy one, get one free offers or flash sales are appealing to anyone who's already interested enough in YouTube, sign up for your newsletter in the first place. You can also give you a subject lines and flare personality and pizzazz with a bit of humor. Have you ever read a subject line that tickled your funny bone and you didn't click on it. Being funny requires a bit more thought and creativity, but it can really pay off in terms of your open rates. After the subject line, the next step is the hook sentence. It's a powerful line that throws water in the reader space to make them pay attention. Don't make the people who did click on your headline regret their decision. Learn them in immediately with a hook that both introduces the newsletter and acts as an attention grabber. We're heroes are lazy and busy. You have seconds to grab your attention. So keep the hook sentence under ten to 15 words. If you can. Use language that's easy to read, short and sweet like this one from the BBC email that I clicked on earlier. Cheating truths jumps for liars, the ultimate provocative song and unexpected Italian wedding. For inspiration and best practice examples, check out really good emails.com. It's a site that captures the most creative and inspiring emails making the rounds. You can even search by product category. Some final pointers where email newsletters are concerned. Number one, let your true Self come out. It that's funny, serious, playful, or inspiring. Six of your brand voice throughout. Number to make sure your subject line and content is optimized for mobile users as over 50% of email is opened on a mobile device. Number three, for each newsletter, have a topic or theme in mind so ideas don't get muddled up. For. Always wrap up with a strong call to action that the readers note what the next step is. Do you want them to read articles on your site by something, donate or follow you on Instagram. Many news that has made the mistake of not actually selling anything or requiring any action on the reader's part. Number five, semaphore newsletters from your competitors or other players in your specific industry. What are they talking about? How do they talk to readers? Number six, check your analytics. The good thing about newsletter services is that you can keep track of your open rate, which is how many people opened your email. And the click-through rate, which is the number of people who actually clicked on a link in your email. Track, tests and optimize your email newsletters. What works best for your target audience. When it comes to subject lines, for example, does short and funny Dr. Moore opens and long and informative. If you're not hitting your goals, ask why. Number seven, newsletter content should always be relevant and focused. Don't just send out emails for the sake of it. Your newsletters can gain relevance by being pegged to particular events or celebrations like National Geographic did by sending a newsletter with a discount on history books and guides. Around the fourth of July. People's time and in backspace is precious. Email them about something helpful, informative, or entertaining.
9. FAQs & Legal Jargon: Composing your legal jargon is probably one of the lesser exciting writing tasks, but you'll have to roll up your sleeves and get down to it anyway. This legal documentation includes codes of conduct, return policies, cookie policies, privacy policies and your terms and conditions, and they're definitely worth thinking about frequently asked questions or fax pages. Help your business briefly respond to the needs of your audience. This is your chance to preemptively answer every question. You think potential customers will have an answer. The one of the current customers already do the length of the fact page and other legal documents are usually on the footer of your site. If you're collecting any personal information including names, email addresses, shipping addresses or credit card details, then you need to have a privacy policy, a privacy policy explains. To cite Mr is what happens to the personal information they give you. It helps you have misters trust your website, and having one is a legal requirement. In many countries, terms and conditions are the set of rules, regulations and standards that govern the use of the website. Sometimes it's called a disclaimer or illegal notice. Having one isn't required by law. But it's a legally binding agreement between you and your users, which prevents abuse of your service and limits your liability in cases where errors of famine the websites content. It's also a convenient location to make any disclosures that are required by law. Your terms will vary depending on your industry in the type of business you're conducting on your website. Just because these are serious documents, you don't have to sacrifice your tone like everything else. They could be an avenue to display a bit of personality. A sauces and branded speaks to his customers in a totally millennial, cooler, older sister tone of voice. They're very informal, and even their returns policy is full of exclamation marks, its cheeky and way too cool for school terms and conditions. Privacy policies in facts are there to inform first and foremost, but they can also entertain research the requirements for that industry that you're in and learn from the masters. Go to other websites that do what you do or your competitors see what they include and tweet them accordingly. You want them to sound like you, but they should also look and come across a legitimate functioning business. If you find this part of the marketing process a bit tedious, there are so many templates out there for your type of business. It doesn't have to be a headache, and you don't actually have to start from scratch. Terms and policy templates can be found from terms, feed dot com terms and conditions. Template dot com Get terms on IO Rocket lawyer dot co dot UK and Shopify also has a free policy generator.
10. 10 Copywriting Commandments: we've arrived at the last chapter now. And before you go, I'd like to share 10 copyrighting commandments that nicely blend together everything you've learned so far. You can keep them in your back pocket whenever you're working on marketing your business. Number one right? Like a human note. Like a brand people don't want to re generic tax written by robots number two Let data help you tell your brand story rather than using them on their own. Use qualitative and quantitative data to support your ideas. Number three. Don't make claims. You can't back up if you're number one in your field. Why? Who said So? Did you win an award? Did you have the highest sales? Did you invent something you can claim to be the best just because your family and friends think so. Number four. Use events to slot your company into the conversation that's already happening. It was the Fourth of July. Say something about America's history. Tell a read or something they don't know. Help them celebrate. There are clever ways that you can relate current events to your product. Number five. Don't be super fun on Facebook, but serious on your website If you're going to have an informal, outgoing personality, it needs to stay constant across all platforms. Having a consistent tone makes your copy recognizable wherever you put it. Number six. The reader should be able to fully comprehend what you're writing about, and this is best accomplished through simple language. Number seven. There's no disputing that humor is a powerful ally when it comes to marketing. If your product or topic is something that's usually off limits like toilet habits, for instance, humor can be used to open people's minds and lighten the conversation. Humor helps people connect with brands, and it's proven to enhance the memorability and persuasiveness of messages. Number eight, it goes without saying, but you should always edit your work several times and then some. Editing software, like Graham Early and Hemingway can prevent you from publishing work with careless grammar mistakes or typos, which happened to the best of us. When the reader discovers a spelling or grammar mistake, it completely interrupts their concentration. It might even make them stop reading. At the very least, it's bound to lessen your authority in your eyes. Give yourself the overnight test, go back and look at what you've written later on, when you've had some distance from it. Number nine. Don't be scared to go back to the drawing board. The first thing that you write usually isn't your masterpiece. Think about how many brands have changed their messaging target or even brand name A sauce used to be as seen on screen, trial and error is everything. Experiment to see what works for you. Number 10. Never underestimate the importance of being interesting. Don't write something just for writing safe. Are those words jumping off the page and into the readers? Start catalogue and chamber of wants. No matter how normal or regular your product or service is. Make your copy attractive. Great marketing copy is original. Different, surprising or intriguing. It should also be engaging in involving. If the reader is involved, will keep ticking along until the end, where they'll find your strong call to action for your business, and that is always your goal.
11. Your Turn: Now that you've gotten lots of inspiration for great of unique and effective ways to present your business, it's time to put pen to paper. Your class project is to choose 2 to 3 types of property that your business needs most and work on that copy in the Russians providing whether that's defining your unique selling point for writing copy for your website. It's always a good idea to start from the beginning with your goals, your audience and your tone. Knowing that makes everything easier. Bear in mind that there is no grading system to this project. If you can fill all the boxes in, then you probably know your business inside. How to get feedback on your ideas. Share them with people in your target. Your close circle of friends and other students in this class bounce off each other. Thank you so much for joining me for this lesson that I can't wait to see what you create. Good luck. Have fun and see you at the next fast
Rosie Bell, Writer & freedompreneur
