Did you know that only 37% of brands surveyed in the 2023 State of Content Marketing report by Semrush, outsource their copywriting needs? This won’t be a problem for those who have managed to find talented writers to employ in-house or have existing employees that know a thing or two about packing a powerful marketing copywriting punch. Unfortunately, these brands are in the minority and what happens more often than not is that brands ‘make do’ with the resources they have because they don’t have the time or capacity to think about doing things differently. It’s not easy to kickstart a new business relationship but using a self-employed copywriter can save you money and make your marketing more successful.

Good copywriting has a big impact on marketing campaigns. It can make the difference between people staying on your website and clicking away, between customers and prospects liking and disliking your brand, and between potential customers following a call to action or continuing their research journey. It’s not something that should be pushed to the bottom of the priority list or done in a hurry. Even if your business is producing copious amounts of copy on a regular basis, how confident are you that it is copy that is doing your business justice?

Here are five top tips to create copy that captures attention (in a good way!).

1. Understand your audience

You can’t expect people to keep reading your marketing material, whether your website, blog, feature article, social media, direct mail, or brochure, if you have written it with a generic or catch-all audience in mind. It’s far better to think about a small group of people, or even just one person that represents your ideal customer and write copy that you know will hit the mark with them. Writing for one person makes it much easier to stay on track with your objectives and what you want to achieve.

2. Find your angle

Whatever medium you are writing for, make sure you know what your angle is before you start. To pinpoint an angle, think about why your audience will want to read the piece – what will they get out of it? What new piece of information or research can you bring to the table to introduce the topic you want to cover? If you’re struggling to answer this question it’s going to be hard to engage your readers, let alone encourage them to follow a call to action.

3. Use your words wisely

When you’re staring at a blank page before writing a 700 word feature article or 1200 word blog post, it can be easy to fill the void by using more words than you need in a sentence. This isn’t a problem as long as you edit the piece when you’ve finished. Read your copy aloud and if you find it jars and you wouldn’t say those words in real life, the chances are it will jar for your readers. It’s OK to be more formal if the medium calls for it, but formal can sometimes become difficult to read if there are too many long, convoluted sentences. It’s far better to keep it simple and make sure your content is useful, than have pages of copy that don’t really say anything.

4. Don’t be a one draft wonder

I touched on it briefly in the previous point but once you have finished your piece of writing, even if you think you’ve nailed it the first time, take a break and come back to read through it again later. Occasionally I’ll come back to some copy and make just one or two changes, but often it’s only on a second or third read through that I can spot a few ways to make the piece even better. It can be tempting to get the article off your desk as soon as you have fulfilled the word count, but this rarely makes for impactful copy that resonates with your audience.

5. Keep it interesting

If you think about the copy you like to read when researching a product or browsing trade magazines, it is probably copy that looks interesting on the page. Use subheadings, powerful images, bold bullet points, and stand-alone sentences to break up the page and encourage readers to stick with you. Of course, well-written copy will keep them engaged as well, but however good your copy is, a lot of readers will skim a page until they find what they need, so make it easy for them to get to the information they’re looking for quickly.

Quality marketing copy counts

If your business marketing copy is not having the impact you would like, it might be worth reviewing the process to try to get it back on track. Perhaps you have been pleased with the amount of copy being generated and so haven’t stopped to think about what that copy is saying and whether it is having the desired effect. I hope these top tips help to level up your copy but if it all still feels a bit daunting, perhaps I can help by delivering hassle free marketing copy for your business. Contact me today on [email protected] for copywriting support for blogs, feature articles, direct mails and much more.

About Blog Write Ltd

Writer of smart, engaging copy for businesses that understand the importance of great copy, but struggle to find the time to give it the attention it needs. I offer a proactive approach to deliver fresh content.