What Is Marketing Copywriting?
A successful online presence requires providing valuable content for your audience, one of the most effective forms of content is marketing copy. Marketing copy is used for the purpose of advertising to people that may potentially buy your product. People utilize marketing copy in order to persuade people to buy, vote, or agree, whatever it may be, it is written with a purpose behind it. I plan to use marketing copy to have content available for when my audience needs it most, a future example of this would be “5 Tips To Make More 3 Footers,” having this content available for one of my students who has recently came off of the golf course fuming about how many short putts they missed creates value for them from both my website and my instruction.
There are several types of marketing copy that fall into three general categories; collateral categorization is how the copy is delivered whether it’s by a newsletter, or by a website. Secondly is the medium or form of delivery, video, audio, poster, or webpage are different forms of copy delivery. Lastly, is the style of the copy this part is the most unique because different products require different styles, A style that I will utilize in the future is the teaching style, in this style the audience will learn first and have the call to action second. I have to be comfortable with people simply getting golf instruction whether it’s from me or from another CPGA professional. The idea behind this style is that I show the audience what they need and why they need instruction, this takes away their sense of the unknown when it comes to golf instruction and will make it easier to pursue further instruction.
12 Steps To Marketing Copywriting
After completing Learning to Write Marketing Copy by Ian Lurie, I will be highlighting and utilizing the following 12 steps that he discussed in his video to bring my own marketing copywriting to life.
Step #1- Assembling Your Tools
The first step to great writing is prepping the area you will be writing in. I am easily distracted when it comes to creative writing and clearing the area around me of distraction is when I am most effective. There are a few common things I do to get the most out of my writing, I grab a hot cup of jet fuel (coffee), turn my phone to airplane mode, and find a comfortable spot with little background noise, I also try to plan my writing around live sports broadcasts so I’m not thinking about what I’m missing while writing (at no point will you find me behind a keyboard during The Masters or any playoff Edmonton Oilers and Seattle Seahawks broadcasts).
Step #2- Creating The Plan
Spend 30 minutes to formulate a plan of what you are writing, your plan will change many times before you are done so don’t fret over little details. The plan should include notes about your audience, a list of collateral, and a list of styles that may or may not work (Lurie, 2014).
Step #3- Free Writing To Get Ideas Down
At this step, you will need to start freely writing ideas down associated with your plan, at this point do not focus on the format, write whatever pops into your head. I have difficulties getting the creative flow going, I believe that by getting simple ideas out of your head it allows you to connect them and use creativity to elaborate on them.
Step #4- Writing The First Draft
I recently looked back at some of the timed writing I did back in grade school and found that when given an allotted amount of time to write about something, the lack of thoughtfulness leads to some incredibly creative ideas. The first step here is to set a timer for 45-90 minutes, next write from the inside out skip the introduction and get the meat of the content written.
Step #5- Observing General Rules
These are basic yet sometimes forgotten areas of copywriting, firstly you should address the reader, secondly quality content is more important than the quantity of views it receives, lastly is a rule that I consistently use which tells the consumer how it will benefit them. When I’m instructing I don’t show a student a specific swing move without accompanying it with why it is important to them and why I am showing them it.
Step #6- Polishing The Draft
Now that the marketing copy is written down, it is important to fine tune to produce the desired results. Get others to read the copy, then edit accordingly and then proofread (Lurie, 2014). I have enlisted the help of Grammarly for my writing and it is amazing the immediate improvements that I saw from this change.
Step #7- Writing A Headline
- Headlines shouldn’t be mysterious, in fact, “a clear headline outperforms a mysterious headline by about 2:1” (Lurie, 2014).
- Avoid scaring people in your headline, a headline I will never use would be “Broken Back: Why You Need Golf Instruction”
- Using a formula will help with consistency and steer you away from making headline mistakes. Testimonials also make great headlines, and utilizing specific features that set you apart can also be useful in headlines.
- Write many different headlines to find the best one, sometimes you may find it is a combination of both which is exactly how I landed on the headline for this blog.
- Captions are not a headline; headlines are a preview of the content and your first way to earn the readers interest, while captions are more of a literal statement.
Step #8- Testing Your Headlines
- Pick your favorite headlines narrow it down to 2-3.
- Ask people about which one is best, run an ad and see the feedback, also you can send an email with two different headlines to two separate groups see which is the most effective by checking the open rate on the email (Lurie, 2014).
Step #9- Selling The Page
This is now how you get the reader to stay, some straightforward ways of doing this would be a table of contents summarizing the key points, the second which needs more creativity would be to come up with a summary that is fun and attention-grabbing. I see the second as a useful way to make my instruction more approachable and will look to start using an enticing summary to grab the reader’s attention.
Step #10- Structuring For Print
Print is anything that will be offline and found on paper, I found that some key points I will utilize for my future copy are keeping text to 5-6 lines per paragraph, no more than 15-20 words per line, and using images because that is what sells it(Lurie, 2014), I believe in these points because I have read articles that have went over these boundaries and found myself losing interest from a lack of visual stimulation. I also found it satisfying to know that my I have correctly done my call to action in the past, which should make it easy for readers to find more information and contact you.
Step #11- Structuring For Online
When structuring online it is important to look at the disadvantages to online copy, it is much easier to have your writing taken out of context, it also is harder to read long copy online so keep this in mind when writing longer more in-depth posts, lastly is form it viewed on (Lurie, 2014), this is something I am currently working trying to get my website to work on all of my devices to my desired format. The biggest upside to online copy is that it is editable, so for people new to copywriting like myself, a copy is editable for mistakes even after it is published.
Step #12- Using Typography Effectively
The last step discussed in Ian Lurie’s “Learning to Write Marketing Copy,” focuses more on letters rather than words. It is important to create copy that is easily scannable, the audience should be able to scan over the key details of the copy and get the just of it. The golden ratio is a good rule of thumb for basic typography, it is not the easiest to do, which is why Chris Pearson created this golden ratio typography calculator to help.
Benefits To Wardo Golf
- More valuable copy that students and other readers find useful to come back to.
- Copy that clearly communicates to my students and readers the benefits of instruction and information.
- Marketing copy will help grow my student base by marketing to those who need it most.
- I have found a common style to in my copy; I will look to use a teaching style in my future marketing copyright.
- Greater understanding of the process to write valuable marketing copy.
Reference
Lurie, I. (2014, May 28). Learning to Write Marketing Copy [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.lynda.com/Business-Online-Marketing-tutorials/Creating-plan/149250/175051-4.html
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