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Putting energy into your writing

January 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

We all know that it’s important to stay in a good state of mind if we want to achieve anything, but have you considered how much your current mindset affects your written material?

If you’re planning to sit down and write anything for your business – whether it’s web copy, a marketing flyer or a sales letter – the results you get will reflect the state of mind you were in when you wrote it.

I don’t know about you, but I want people to relate to what I’m saying (in writing) and to feel good about it.  If I’m tired, gloomy, bored, distracted, stressed or worried the copy I write isn’t going to cut it.  If I am feeling good, enthusiastic, happy and things are going well my copy will reflect that and will be more upbeat, stronger and have more energy and life to it.

Does this mean that I’m permanently on a high?  No, I’m human!  It does mean that I work at attitude management and aim to generate positive ‘vibes’ when I’m writing.  The big plus for me is that I love what I do – if you hate writing, get someone else to do it, it will show in the results your written material generates.

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Visit the Treasure Chest for lots of tips and helpful ‘how to’ documents.  For help with your commercial copywriting just give me a call on 01245 473296.

Filed Under: Writing Skills Tagged With: , ,

Habits that help your marketing

June 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A habit is something that you do almost without thinking about it.

  • We get dressed by habit (although we may consciously choose the clothes we wear).
  • We clean our teeth by habit (whilst we think about other things).
  • We even drive by habit (once we’ve got past that uncomfortable and sometimes scary learning process).

    • When you’re developing a marketing strategy for your business it’s a really good idea to develop marketing habits. This means that you have a plan and the more you follow it the easier it gets! Let’s look at some examples:

    Most people have an email ‘habit’ – attach your Twitter postings, retweets and comments to your email activity. Do your email and then your Twitter; soon it will be as automatic as your email habit.

    Have a set time of the week to do marketing activities so maybe writing a blog on a Monday morning before you do anything else, creating an email marketing campaign on a Friday afternoon and scheduling the messages.

    Think of your online networking in the same way you think about offline networking – you arrive at your networking meetings at a specified time and leave when the meeting is over, if you arrived at any other time there would be nobody there to network with, so make an appointment with your online networks regularly.

    Most of us are willing to invest 2-3 hours of our time in networking breakfasts, coffees, lunches and evening events – and often pay for the privilege, but are less willing to invest even two hours a week in our online networks. Choose a time when you usually find your attention wandering from work and refocus yourself on finding out what’s going on online.

    Get good marketing habits and your marketing will start to really work for your business.
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    Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: , ,

    Marketing letters that work

    May 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

    When you decide to use direct mail as a means of contacting prospective customers you need to ensure you get your message on target. Unlike email, direct mail has costs attached, not least the list with all the names and addresses of the groups of people you want to target, but also the printing, stationery, postage and design fees related to any leaflets you plan to include.

    Leaflets alone are less effective, but a really good sales letter will pay dividends, so how do you go about constructing a sales letter?

    There are two main categories of sales letter, a single page type and a very long ‘letter’ that is more like a small magazine! The latter type has a formula to follow and is very specialist. It doesn’t work for business to business contacts; it’s much more effective when aimed directly at the consumer.

    So, let’s focus on that letter that is a single page aimed at other business owners.

    Before you start writing think about what a potential client would want to know – really! Not what you think they need to know, but what would make them go ‘that’s something that will really add value to my business’.

    When you start writing forget about what you do, what you are, or what you think and focus on the reader. Talk about their problems and challenges, not your solutions.

  • Start by engaging the reader, not announcing what your company does.
  • Present what your product or service does in terms of what it will deliver in the way of benefits or solutions for the reader.
  • Stay focused on the things that make a difference to human beings (not to the corporate performance, unless you can relate it to something that will make the individual reading feel good).
  • Don’t load the letter with detail – if you feel it’s necessary to give them more detail do it in an attachment, flyer, added sheet, link to a website, etc.
  • Reinforce the core benefits in a call to action.

    • When you get to the last line before you sign off don’t write anything ‘woolly’! For instance, NOT ‘We look forward to hearing from you’, but ‘Don’t forget, to get your special offer for June, please call us on 0800 111 2233 before the last day of the month.’

    If you’re not offering them any special deals or offers then you will need to have a telephone follow up built into the marketing process. Then you can finish up with ‘I’d really like to meet with you and will call you (one of my team will call you) on [DATE] to organise an appointment.’ It’s better to put a date than ‘early next week’ or ‘shortly’, it focuses their mind much more!

    Any data, details or visuals should be in a separate page. Remember, people read the first page, glance at the second page and generally won’t be bothered with anything more than that. You don’t want your call to action on the second page!
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    Sign up on the right and get your free reports, tips and information that will help you get your message across in writing.

    You can also find us on +44 (0) 1245 473296 or on Skype ‘lesleywriter’

    Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: , , ,
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