The secret language of the written word
April 29, 2019 § Leave a comment
When you speak to someone they know what you’re saying because they can hear the words and, importantly, how you’re saying them.
When you text someone they can’t always be sure of what you’re saying – or, at least, exactly what you mean – because they can see the words but can’t hear the tone of voice behind them. So your innocent reply can be misread.
The same goes for content on a website. It’s a real craft to write content that’s friendly, appealing and easy-to-understand-in-one-reading.
Going back to text messages, I received one the other day from a friend who was replying to a ‘Happy Birthday’ text I’d sent her. It said: “Many thanks” which I thought was a stilted and corporate reply between two good friends. To be honest, I worried about it over a cup of tea and wondered what could be wrong – I’d got the right date, sent her a card as well (and in time) and my text to her was just the cherry on top.
It turned out, I discovered some days later, that she’d been at the hospital accompanying her mum to an appointment and had just been called in when my message pinged through. Rather than not answer it she dashed a reply to acknowledge it – a message that led me to worry for days because it didn’t sound rushed, just formal.
In the scheme of life, a slightly misunderstood text message is not so damaging because you can put it right quickly. Reality is that if you’re texting, you’ll also have the recipient’s number so that you can call to check out the meaning of something you’ve received, if it doesn’t sound quite right.
Not so simple is the website example. Many, many people will visit your site and it’ll be a long time – if ever- that you find out they’re not responding to it because they don’t understand what you’re saying. You won’t have the telephone number of everybody who visits because you don’t know who they are.
The fact here is that website content is best written by someone who initially doesn’t know your business, has to ask loads and loads of questions to understand it and then can craft good written copy to make it sound friendly, appealing and entirely understandable – without the visitor even having to try to work out what it means. I can help you with that – 07946 450708 or send an email to julie@bowlerhatmedia.co.uk.
7 essentials for successful copy
January 10, 2019 § Leave a comment
When you write copy to advertise your business people will judge you on the quality of your writing. That includes your posts on social media.
You might not think that’s fair because whereas you’re top of your trade – as a tourist bureau, for example – you’ve never got to grips with spelling, grammar and proofreading. Writing isn’t even part of your job – so why would potential customers care about typos? Actually you know the answer – because you do it yourself. If you read company literature that’s sloppy, you’ve immediately got a picture of said company as ‘cheap’ and a business that doesn’t pay attention to detail. If they’ve got their own communication wrong, what else are they going to get wrong? Sometimes the company becomes a laughing stock (see picture above).
Here are 7 steps that cover the basics:
- Read what you’ve written – not what you THINK you’ve written. A fresh pair of eyes on the job is ideal. If you’re working alone, go make a cup of coffee and come back to the copy later after a little break. You’re much more likely to spot errors then as opposed to a long hard stare at the same words in one sitting.
- Illustrate it – which I agree isn’t copy, as such, but is an essential ingredient for making your post/poster/blog look enticing. Uninterrupted blocks of text are off-putting. If you don’t have a photo to accompany the text, companies such a Pixabay almost certainly do. Pixabay has a library of free images.
- Your headline is critical. Would it attract your attention? Perhaps you’re too close to the copy to know. Again, fresh eyes and an honest second opinion are useful. As a rule of thumb, don’t use your company name in the headline – it classifies the writing as definite advertising and reduces interest.
- Don’t talk posh. If you wouldn’t say it like that, don’t write it like that. Conversational rather than ‘stiff’ copy makes it easy on the reader, giving the copy a better chance of being read. I don’t mean slang!
- Don’t overlook numbers and little words like ‘to’ or ‘it’ . A department store local to me produced a promotional leaflet and got its telephone number wrong. It corrected its mistake by gluing white paper with the correct number over the error, thereby devaluing all the work it had put into the leaflet. I’ve also seen company literature where complicated words have been spelt beautifully but tiddly words have been allowed to morph into mistakes. Madly, headlines are often overlooked too.
- When it comes to blogs, make sure you categorise and tag accurately. Categories outline the subject you are writing about. Tags are more specific and pinpoint the topics within the subject. I like this explanation: a recipe for brownies on a food blog might have the categories ‘dessert’ and ‘baking’ and the tags would be something like ‘chocolate’ ‘brownies’ and ‘walnuts’. Every second around 17 posts are published on WordPress sites globally and you have to give yourself the best chance of being found.
- Lists are a great format to attract readers to a blog, either bulleted – or numbered like this one.
Twitter and Stephen Fry’s breakfast!
June 1, 2017 § Leave a comment
It takes seconds to get yourself a reputation and decades to lose it and that’s exactly what has happened to Twitter.
Back in the days when Twitter started tweeting (2006), there was an appetite among the Twitterati to post a bunch of stuff that nobody needed to know but lots of people lapped up.
There’d be stuff as trivial as what the rich and famous had for breakfast, for example and there were celebrities like Stephen Fry who just loved tweeting.
So by slapping those two bits of info together people have landed on the notion that Twitter is only about ‘rubbish like Stephen Fry’s breakfast’. It’s an excuse that’s pulled out time and time again by businesspeople who don’t get Twitter – although why Stephen Fry’s breakfast has been chosen as a scapegoat is a mystery.
His breakfast doesn’t feature in his top tweets or even his first tweets.
It’s true he has said something about breakfast but, to be fair, he’s said something about a lot of things because he’s a prolific tweeter.
We’ve moved on miles since the first days of Twitter. Some of the early takers have ditched it – maybe to worry more about Instagram. Many other accounts have now joined Twitter not to talk about their breakfast but to talk about their business.
It’s easy to see why. Twitter is a cost-effective form of marketing particularly in an era when print advertising is relatively more expensive and far less interesting. But people who don’t get Twitter still use the ‘Stephen Fry breakfast’ argument as an excuse for not pounding the life out of their Twitter accounts.
Realistically, Twitter takes time to master. It’s a fast-moving beast so accounts have to tweet often and regularly to make their mark. Although there are tools to help everyone spread their message and reach a wide audience throughout the day, these need to be learnt as well. Using the right hashtags will mean tweets are seen in the right places by the right people – potential customers – at the right times. But all this takes the know-how to know how to build up an audience and keep them interested.
It makes more sense for many people to concentrate on the main business of running their business. One answer is to hand over the management of social media to a company whose business is social media and ‘words’. Bowler Hat knows plenty of companies who have decided to do just that, from DIY stores and hairdressers to accountants and webchat services.
Five tweets per day for the sum of £50 per week (that’s what Bowler Hat charges) adds up to good value for an ad campaign for business (and has nothing to do with Stephen Fry’s breakfast!)
‘Less’ clients mean more profit????!!!!
October 24, 2012 § Leave a comment
Whether or not you agree with the sentiment of the headline, the statement ‘less clients mean more profit’ is just plain wrong!
What’s even worse, though, is that I just spotted that statement on a copywriter’s website – he was selling a course of copywriting tips and the above was the headline of one of them. I’m telling you (for free) that ‘fewer’ clients may, indeed, make you more profit – almost definitely if one of them is a Coca-Cola or McDonald’s type giant. But I’m not-so-secretly hoping that copywriters, who don’t know that ‘less’ is used to measure a volume of matter and ‘fewer’ is correct when you’re referring to numbers, profit accordingly.
Continuing on my rounds as a self-appointed member of the Word Police, let me now draw your attention to verbs that are misused:
- Try and do (something) = wrong
- Try to do (something) = RIGHT
I see and hear that one often – and why does it really matter, you might ask, because everyone will understand what you mean even if you make the mistake. That’s true. But like it or not, we’re judged on how professionally we present ourselves. Your business may have nothing to do with words but if you don’t use them correctly to explain what you do, the impression you’re giving is less polished than the company that makes the extra effort to get the words right.
Since I mentioned the word in the last par: you’re or your? Stop and think before you decide which version you’re (you are) going to use because your company literature looks amateurish if you plump for the wrong one:
- You’re = you are
- Your = belonging to you
The point is, you can affect (influence) the way people view your business by the way your corporate copy is written. The effect (result) of good copywriting shows you means business.
Have you been in business for ‘over X years’ or ‘more than X years’? Answer: it’s more than x years. ‘Over’ denotes the position of something (over the road) and ‘more than’ relates to numbers. Yes, again, meaning will be understood even if you slip up but your writing will shine out if your corporate literature and website demonstrate a full understanding of your own language.
To recap, use:
- fewer (when referring to numbers), less (when referring to volume);
- try to, NOT try and ;
- you’re (for you are), your (for belonging to you);
- affect (when you mean influence), effect (when you mean result);
- over (when referring to position), more than (when referring to numbers).