Since so many small business owners write their own ads, articles, marketing collateral and website copy, below are five writing tips to get your writing in sync with the 21st Century customer.
5 Writing Tips
Write Strong Beginnings
Allegedly, you have four seconds to hook a reader. If that's true, the beginning of your copy has to be the strongest. This means the headline.
The following two headline writing tips may help you craft something that will entice your prospect to buy:
- Appeal to your reader's self interest. This means they will gain an edge, solve a problem or avoid a loss by reading further.
- State a benefit. Be very clear about this. What will the reader gain by reading this piece?
Here’s an example: Before you swallow another diet pill, you must read this free report.
This appeals to the reader's self interest (that diet pills may not be good for you) and focuses on an immediate benefit to the reader (a free report).
More material exists on headlines (I even took an entire class on the subject!), but these two are the most relevant.
Be Active
With your verbs, I mean. Stay away from the state-of-being verbs “is” and “are” as much as possible. You may not realize it, but they can lull the reader to sleep. Passive sentences should comprise less than ten percent of your writing piece. (Note: This piece has 6% passive sentences.)
Informality Works
It's the trend of the world. Have you noticed it on text messages?
Author: Steve Wyrostek
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