74 brilliant copywriting
Keep it punchy
Dame Barbara Cartland, doyenne of the romantic bodice-ripper
and one of the most prolific novelists of all time, used to say
‘God give me short sentences’. It’s excellent advice. That said,
it’s also important to vary the pace a bit, so the occasional longer
sentence (or very short one) can do wonders for the rhythm of a
particular passage.
Benefits, not features
This is a crucial point at the very heart of brilliant copywriting.
I don’t write about what something is, I write about what it can
do for the reader. It’s about answering the question, ‘What’s in it
for me?’ As I’m researching I usually uncover lots of information
about a product’s features – what it does, how it works and so
on. Turning this raw material into a list of benefits and
expressing that in an appealing way is what I spend a good
chunk of my writing time doing. The best way is to divide my
page into two columns. In one I write a list of features, and in
the other I translate these into benefits by asking something
along the lines of ‘How does that help?’ With a reasonably
fulsome list of benefits at my fingertips I then rank them
according to what I think is their reader appeal, and that’s my
basic argument in the bag.
brilliant
example
Paperclip feature/benefit analysis
Features Benefits
Unusual shape Natural spring action holds paper together
securely for a tidy desk. Brings order where
there was chaos.
All-metal construction Reusable to keep stationery costs down.
Almost unlimited working life.
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Rational is good, emotional is better
All that fact-finding and turning
features into benefits will (hopefully)
unearth rational reasons for my
readers to believe what I’m saying.
That’s good, but as we’ve estab-
lished, it’s only half the story.
Brilliant copywriting demands that I balance these rational
reasons with emotional reasons to buy. It could be the actual lan-
guage I use or how I zero in on a particular benefit and
dramatise it in a way that hits home for the individual reader. It
comes back to my point about copy as a conversation, a one-to-
one chat that just happens to be all about selling. I try to write
to their hearts because that’s where persuasion really takes place
– if a reader can hear a human voice in my words then I’ve mas-
sively increased my chances of being listened to.
Let the reader find their own meaning
Sometimes I like to leave the conclusion dangling before the
reader’s eyes in anticipation of them doing the final bit of
meaning-making for me. I lead them almost all the way, but just
During 75
try to write to their
hearts because that’s
where persuasion really
takes place
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Can be chained together Instant office jewellery for that nice
girl/boy in Accounts.
I jest but you get the idea.
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leave things ever so slightly unfinished. Asking them to help solve
the riddle of its meaning creates empathy (provided it’s done
well, of course) and involves them in the piece.
Sometimes it’s best to tell it straight
I know, I know, this contradicts the last point, but if I’ve got a
great proposition I don’t necessarily need to smother it in puns
or other comedic shenanigans. I just make sure I answer the ques-
tion. If I judge that a particular copywriting task requires a
straight bat (and plenty do) then that’s fine. It’s about being sen-
sitive to my material, argument and reader.
Introduce structure without being obvious
I once came across a piece of advice from copy god David
Abbott along the lines of ‘Learn to write a list that doesn’t sound
like one.’ I often find myself needing to present a series of points
in my body copy, but using a straightforward list is almost cer-
tainly a mistake. I need to be more brilliant than that. So I
recommend studying how to use linking words and phrases to
maximum effect. Sure, I might write my list straight to start
with, but I then go over and over it, softening the edges until it
reads without interruption and each sentence flows seamlessly
out of the previous one. When I’m done I should have a perfect
whole where everything counts and nothing can be removed
without upsetting the internal balance of the piece.
76 brilliant copywriting
brilliant
example
A list that isn’t
I’ve turned a bulleted technical datasheet I picked at random into a
paragraph without losing any detail:
You can use this ATM just about anywhere. Indoors you can add fingerprint
recognition features and a large capacity multi-currency dispenser.
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During 77
Apply the time test
If I have the luxury of a generous deadline, I like to write my
piece, put it away, then return to it a few hours, days or weeks
later. I’ll inevitably spot some hideous stylistic blooper that I pre-
viously missed. Rudyard Kipling said that when he finished a
story he put it in a drawer for a few weeks, then went back through
it, crossing out the bits he was most proud of first time around.
Apply the embarrassment test
Earlier I advised you to read your draft aloud to check that it
makes sense and that the rhythm and punctuation work as they
should. There’s another important benefit to this technique –
making sure it isn’t excruciatingly embarrassing. So I ask myself,
‘Would I be happy to read it aloud in front of the client? How
about in front of my family or friends?’ If anything makes me
cringe then I know what to do.
It’s got to work
Just because my words read well doesn’t automatically mean
they actually work. It’s easy to style a piece of prose so that it
appears to say much more than it delivers.The cure is to ask how
something performs. And the best people to ask are outsiders. I’m
a great believer in the benefit a fresh pair of eyes can bring,
especially when it’s late or the clock’s ticking. So I try to get
someone unconnected with the project – usually my long-
suffering wife – to give my copy a quick read. Like the time
test mentioned above, it’s amazingly effective at highlighting
hidden horrors.
Outdoors you can choose a rugged, rain-repelling finish or a tamper-
resistant encrypting keypad. It boasts a range of disability access features
like an induction loop and adjustable screen height, and even comes in a
drive-up version (perfect for petrol stations) and a mobile option (ideal for
festivals, fairs and other outdoor fun).
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78 brilliant copywriting
Look for verbs
Verbs are your friend. That’s because actions divide tasks, so if
I’m writing anything with the feel of instructions about it, I look
for the doing words to help structure my argument. They’re par-
ticularly useful in telling me where to put sentence and
paragraph breaks. Incidentally, if I’m writing real instructions
then each one should definitely begin with a verb – that’s what
an instruction is.
brilliant
tip
Here are a few tried and tested ways to kill all interest in a piece. In
other words, how not to do it – a sort of anti-tip if you like. I’d start
by talking endlessly about my client and the minutiae of their
world, rather than my readers and what floats their boat. I’d then
go on to describe the features of their product or service, never its
benefits. I’d make sure I tell readers lots of stuff they either already
know or couldn’t care less about – better still, both. Along the way
I’ll try to cram in as many complex, rambling, highly formal
sentences as possible, with nested clauses, often placed within
further nested clauses, to really make the reader work for the
meaning. Then I’ll remember all that good stuff they taught me at
school about never ending a sentence on a preposition, or using
sentence fragments, or starting a sentence with a conjunction.
Lastly, I won’t worry my pretty head about clichés or banal
language – the more the merrier. George Orwell wrote that ‘the
greatest enemy of clear language is insincerity’, and the language
of insincerity is cliché. But what did he know?
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