Tips for creative copywriters

With the constant demand for more quality content and the growing need for effective copywriting – one to attract visitors, the other to convert them to leads and customers – consistently producing powerful, a high-quality copy is tough.

Here are 9 great tips for creative copywriting.

1. Do more research

One of Ogilvy’s students, legendary copywriter Gary Bencivenga (who also studied with several other great copywriters), said:

“The best copywriters are the most tenacious researchers. Like miners, they dig, drill, dynamite, and chip until they have carloads of valuable ore. John Caples advised me once to gather seven times more interesting information than I could use… Research is the infallible cure for writer’s block.”

The more information you have, the more possibilities you can play with.

2. Add more interest

When you don’t know what to write next or how to make your draft better, one copywriting hint is to add interest. As David Ogilvy once said, “Tell the truth but make truth fascinating. You know, you can’t bore people into buying your product. You can only interest them in buying it.”

So how do you make your copy more fascinating?

• Make it scannable and visually appealing
• Use your distinct personality or unique selling proposition
• Make it entertaining (as long as the humor furthers your goal)
• Incorporate controversy
• Newsjack
• Tell stories

3. Inject the personality

Before publishing anything, make sure it demonstrates your brand personality – including voice, style, word choice, values, and USP – as well as matches your target audience’s needs and desires.

4. Refine your headline

Here are a few of the best tips on copywriting effective headlines and subject lines to get you started:

• Copyblogger’s Magnetic Headlines training
• Write the copy first, then pull out the strongest phrases to use as headlines and subheadings. This ensures your headlines match your copy.
• Opt for straightforward, simple headlines over tricky or clever ones.
• Remember the 4 U’s: Urgent, Unique, Useful, Ultra-specific.
• Give readers a benefit – then make sure you deliver in the body copy.
• Paint a vivid picture or stimulate an intense emotion. These grab attention and add interest, and they can instantly convey the most important benefit.
• Use David Garfinkel’s Shortcut Test: If you posted the headline and a phone number as a classified ad, would it generate inquiries?

4. Tell a story

A 26-year-old raw copywriter sat down in 1926 to write an ad for the U.S. School of Music selling home-study courses for would-be musicians. He could have used a simple benefit headline, like Master the Piano at Home in 30 Days – Without a Teacher!

But he didn’t.

He dug deeper. He knew that mastering an instrument is hard work, and that the real reasons people do it is to be popular, to win their friends’ admiration and envy, and to find happiness. That copywriter realized the real product of the ad wasn’t a course or the ability to play, but popularity and happiness. With that in mind, he still could have used the classic how-to benefit headline, such as How to Be the Most Popular Guy of Any Party!

But he didn’t.

He knew that simply describing musicians’ popularity wouldn’t be enough. He needed the headline to resonate emotionally with prospects. He needed to create a vivid image of a buffoon–the kind of person no one ever dreamed could play – who left his friends stunned speechless by his performance.

His headline was “They Laughed When I Sat Down At the Piano But When I Started to Play!”

Then he used half of his entire ad space to tell the story of personal triumph, seducing prospects into reading the whole ad and giving them a vision of the possibilities.

5. Make the copy visually appealing

If your content doesn’t have what David Garfinkel calls “eye appeal,” it won’t get read or shared.

So how do you give your copy eye appeal?

• a good typefont that’s easy on the eyes and big enough to read
• short paragraphs
• variety in the text, e.g. bolding, italicizing, underlining
• bulleted or numbered lists
• indented paragraphs or quotes
• headings and subheadings
• visual cues, i.e. arrows pointing at the form button

6. Don’t be clever

As writers and content marketers, we like to play with our words. Sometimes that’s okay, depending on your brand personality and the type of content. But most of the time, being clear and concise will return greater rewards than being clever.

As million-dollar copywriter Gary Bencivenga said:

“Effective copywriting is salesmanship in print, not clever wordsmithing. The more self-effacing and invisible your selling skill, the more effective you are. Copywriters who show off their skills are as ineffective as fishermen who reveal the hook.”

7. Have a purpose behind everything you write

With the content marketing boom, lots of marketers create content for content’s sake. Having a large library of content can be incredibly useful, but only if each piece has a purpose and fits in the overall plan.

As David Ogilvy said, “In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.” Witty, clever content by itself doesn’t do you any good. Make sure your content engages your audience, builds trust, and encourages sales first.

8. Focus on benefits

Every great copywriter advises other writers to emphasize benefits, not features:

• John Caples said, “The best headlines are those that appeal to the reader benefits.”
• Eugene Schwartz said, “Talk about what your product ‘does’, not ‘is’ – and demonstrate this.”
• Bob Bly said, “Virtually all successful copy discusses benefits.”

Everybody talks about this copywriting tip because it works, and it’s a relatively easy fix if your current copy isn’t doing so well. Make every feature you mention leads to a benefit.

9. Appeal to emotion

In addition to packing it with proof elements, testimonials, and price justifications, you also should “work every possible emotion the reader might have.”

The trick to incorporating emotions in your copy is to ask yourself: what is my prospect’s deepest desire right now? There are lots of emotions you can appeal to, but the key driving emotions – the strongest, deepest emotions not governed by rational thought – are:

• fear
• greed
• guilt
• exclusivity
• anger
• salvation
• flattery

What are the most common copywriting mistakes?

Making copywriting mistakes is more common than you think. To prevent you from going through any kind of negative situation, we will list the main misconceptions. Check them out below!

• Fail to review content
• Create very technical content
• Exaggerate the benefits of the product or service presented
• Not captivating the reader
• Bet on clichés only
• Exaggerating the benefits