My high school choral director, Mrs. Haig, would always say, “If you can talk, you can sing.” More often than not, she would say this while trying to recruit some pimply-faced sophomore boy into joining the Newport Harbor High Chorale, a choral group always short on male voices.
“But I can’t carry a tune,” that boy would mumble, to which Mrs. Haig would reply, “That doesn’t mean you can’t sing. It just means you need to work on your ability to listen.”
So, in the spirit of Mrs. Haig, hear this:
If you can talk,
you can write good marketing copy.
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You don’t have to be a great writer to write great copy. You have to be a great writer to write a Pulitzer Prize winning novel or get your article published in the New Yorker. But when it comes to writing effective copy, you mostly need to be able to carry on an interesting conversation. A written, one-sided conversation.
Yeah, okay, perhaps it’s a tiny bit more involved than that. But hear me out.
The Best Copy Is Conversational
If you tend to get all flummoxed and frustrated any time you need to create a piece of marketing content, chances are good that you’re trying too hard to write well. Forget about it.
The last thing you want to do when writing copy is create formal, English-essay type prose. Or perfectly constructed sentences and paragraphs. Yuck!
You want your copy to feel and sound like you’re face-to-face with your ideal client, having a friendly conversation over a cup of coffee. Not like a dissertation or legal brief or even a brilliantly written short story.
Now, granted, you can only write one-side of that conversation, but you can do so in a way that anticipates and includes what your ideal client would say if they were able to respond and join in. But more on that later.
First, You Gotta Know Who You’re Talking To!
I don’t know about you, but if I were to have a phone conversation with my 86-year old mother, it would be very different from the conversation I might have with my friend’s teenage son.
So, before you write a word of your one-sided conversation, know who you’re talking to! I’m going to assume you’re writing to your ideal client, yes? Well then, you need to know who that person is! Inside and out.
If you don’t know whom you serve, and I mean really know them, you’re sunk. Not just when writing copy but in every aspect of your business.
So, step one, know who you’re talking to! (Hey, did you notice I didn’t use good grammar just now? If I were in Miss Moss’s English class, I would have written “to whom you are speaking.” But I would never be so “correct” if I was just chatting away with you, right?)
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To get a clear, down-to-the-depths profile of who your ideal client is, download the free 5-Step Formula I offer in the right-hand column of this website. It will give you what you need to get inside the heart and mind of your ideal client so you can write copy that connects!
Have Something Worth Saying
Yes, your copy should be conversational and causal. But you don’t want it to be a long, rambling, self-indulgent, stream of consciousness mess.
Know what you want to say. Get clear on your message and why it’s important to your ideal client. Will it help them? Uplift them? Amuse them? Fill them in on what’s going on?
Since this conversation is one-sided, meaning, your ideal client can’t interrupt you, you better be talking about something that’s relevant, meaningful or fun for them to hear. Otherwise, whoosh! They are gone! Outta here! On to something that engages or entertains them.
Know both the “what” and “why” of your message.
This Just Can’t Wait!
Not always, but more often than not, your message should be so yummy, so exciting, so valuable or so entertaining that you simply cannot wait to share it. It should have that sense of urgency and passion.
When you write your one-sided conversation, you should feel like a 15-year old girl who just heard the juiciest piece of gossip and you cannot wait to tell your best friend because you know she’s going to shriek, jump up and down and go flippin’ berserk when she hears the news.
Let that sense of urgency, excitement and passion come across in your copy “conversation.” Let it lead you to the right words, exclamations, asides and such. In other words, tap into the energy behind your message, and let ‘er rip!
Now… GO!
Okay, you’re tapped in to the energy and ready to write your one-sided conversation to your ideal client. You know what you want to say and who you want to say it to. You also know why it’s important for you to share this with your client, how your message will be of service in some way.
Now imagine your ideal client is sitting right across from you, sitting at your kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee. She’s just told you what’s on her mind, what she’s been struggling with, what she wants and dreams about. And you’ve been listening intently.
Then, she takes a sip of her coffee and says, “So, what’s on your mind? What’s up with you?”
Now, go!
Write down what you would say to her in response, keeping your urgent message in mind. Write it as if you were saying the words out loud to her. Just keep “talking on paper.” Don’t stop until you feel you’ve said it all.
What you’ll have at the end of this is one big knarly mess of words. But that’s okay. Because there’s gold in them thar words! You’ve got the heart, soul, blood and guts of your message.
Comb through what you’ve written, pick out the strongest, most “right on the money” points and phrases, and arrange them into a more coherent whole…while keeping your unique voice and energy alive.
Next week, I’ll share a cool way to structure your big mess of words to create a variety of different marketing materials. Until then, get going on yourt one-sided conversation. If you get stuck or need some help, hey, you know where to find me.
Either way, I’d love to hear from you, so leave a comment below. Tell me how you write your marketing content, where it flows like mountain water and where it slows down like sludge. And if you found this post helpful, why not share it with your friends, colleagues and cronies? That would be super swell.