Top tips from 20 of the UK’s top copywriters

5th

Aug

by Sarah Turner

You may recall, a couple of months ago, I wrote a blog post about how I was going to call everyone I was following on Twitter. Yes, I know. Crazy.

And yet, I have to say, so far it’s been absolutely brilliant. I’ve swapped ideas, learnt new things, planned a few joint projects and really got to know the people behind the avatar. (Oh yeah. And talked a lot of footie.)

I started with UK copywriters* because we’re a friendly bunch by nature. And at the end of each conversation I asked for a top tip or a few words of wisdom. Amazingly, everyone said something different.

Words of wisdom from Ben Locker

“Read everything and anything from Hemingway to the Shoot Annual. Don’t be snobby about it.” Johnny Cullen @EustonDoYouCopy

“Always put yourself in your audience’s shoes.” Jill Tomlinson @shelovestowrite

“Clients, film makers, writers, developers, account managers – you don’t make a viral, your audience does.” Larner Caleb @larnerC

“Great writing isn’t plain English – it’s clear writing with Zing!” Ben Locker @benlocker

“If your copy seems ridiculously simple, it’s finished.” Tom Albrighton @ABC Copywriting

“Always have a cup of tea before you start writing.” Caroline Dalzell @firstforcopy

“Exterminate the word ‘that’.” Joy McCarthy @WORDright

“Remember it’s about the reader not the writer.” Chris Street @bristoleditor

“Have the confidence to write like you speak.” Claire Lynch @goodcopybadcopy

“Write what comes naturally, don’t be contrived or overly SEO conscious. More often than not you’ll include enough keywords without thinking.” Alasdair Murray at @Alconcalcia

“Never answer the phone in your PJs and slippers. Dress as if you were going to meet a client and you’ll feel more professional.” Elaine Swift @laini

“One simple thing any aspiring writer (or even an experienced writer) can do is run every word through a ‘Would you say this to someone you know?’ filter.” Jamie Hudson @jamiehudson

“Confidence carries the day. Write like you’re an expert, talk like you’re an expert, act like you’re an expert. Even if you’re not, it’ll carry you through until you are.” Andrew Nattan @Mr603

“Don’t work for people because you love them or their product. Work for them because they’ll pay your invoice on time. If you love them too, that’s a bonus.” Andy Maslen @andymaslen

“Read out a line of your copy that you think is selling benefits. Now imagine your reader’s response. If they’re saying, “so what?” it’s not a benefit. When they’d feel stupid asking ’so what’, you’re home.” Shamelessly borrowed from Andy Maslen by Mike Brown @word_forge

“Treat your client’s business like it’s your own. Share the passion and the words will flow.” Howard Smith @NoSloppyCopy

“Aspire.” Martin Williams @ukcopywriting

“Put passion before punctuation.” Ali Turnbull @fit_to_print

“Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.” Stolen from screenwriter Aaron Sorkin by Tom Mason @totmac

“Be yourself. Being creative means bringing a little bit of yourself to the table. After all, that’s where ideas come from, your personal experience, your way of expressing yourself. It’s when you try to be something else, or when someone tries to force you to write like they do, that it all goes wrong.” Ali Turner @Copy_Girl

*There are so many UK copywriters in the Twitter gang I’m ‘doing’ them in three posts. More tips from UK copywriters later in the year.

Who shall I call next? SEOers? Or designers?

Tags: copywriters
Posted in Copywriting | 9 Comments »

I’m Lovin’ It: Advertising slogans we use every day

29th

Jul

by Sarah Turner

In the paper the other week some jobsworth from the council described a new parking regulation which would be ‘like marmite’. He then went on to explain that local residents would either love it or hate it.

Which got me thinking. How many other advertising slogans have become part of the vernacular? Which awesomely brilliant straplines do we now say every day?

Here are a few I could think of.

Lovely Jubbly
Lovely Jubbly was first used in an ad campaign for Jubbly orange drink back in the 50s. (Before my time. No, really.) It came in a cleverly shaped pyramid carton, made by Tetrapak, and, by all accounts, was impossible to knock over.

Now used to mean great, fantastic, good stuff, the phrase was made really famous by Del Boy in TV’s Only Fools and Horses.

“Shall we knock off early and go down the pub?”
“Lovely Jubbly.”

Does exactly what it says on the tin®
Used in ad campaigns for woodstain manufacturer Ronseal since the early 1990s, Does exactly what it says on the tin® was created by Liz Whiston and Dave Shelton of London ad agency HHCL.

The phrase is now used to describe anything that’s straightforward, simple to use or behaves as expected.

“That Wordpress plug-in you recommended is great.”
“Does exactly what it says on the tin.”

Because I’m worth it
Made famous by beauty brand L’Oréal, the slogan Because I’m worth it was changed to the more outwardly looking Because you’re worth it in the mid 2000s and the more inclusive Because we’re worth it in 2009.

Now used by women worldwide to justify any overindulgence in alcohol/food/shopping.

“Are you getting those £500 Jimmy Choos?”
“Yes! Because I’m worth it!”

The future’s bright the future’s Orange
Used by telephone company Orange for over 14 years, the famous strapline was laid to rest two years ago. Written by ad agency WCRS in 1994, the slogan was used to launch the mobile phone brand into the UK market.

The phrase is now used to describe anybody who has overdone the fake tan.

“OMG. Did you see the colour of Katie Price?”
“Yep, the future’s bright.”

Just do it
Considered one of the most inspirational slogans of all time, Nike’s Just Do It has been around for over twenty years. Created by Dan Wieden of ad agency Widen+Kennedy the slogan came about after a meeting between Wieden and Nike where he complemented the Nike team for their go-getting attitude. “You Nike guys, you just do it.”

Now said to anybody considered to be slacking.

“Not sure I can be bothered to run 5 miles tonight.”
“Just do it.”

Simples
Made famous by Aleksander Orlov the meerkat, Simples has featured in all Compare The Market’s TV ads since January 2009 and was created by marketing agency VCCP. Aleksandr has gone on to enjoy fame and fortune in his own right and has thousands of followers on Twitter and Facebook.

Simples is used to describe anything that’s really easy to do.

“Did you get your plasma screen up OK?”
“No probs. It was seem-pels.”

I’m lovin’ it
Using the lyrics from a Justin Timberlake track, the I’m lovin’ it slogan was created by German agency Heye and Partner and has been used by McDonald’s since 2003.

I’m lovin’ it is now used to show your appreciation of absolutely anything.

“What do you think of the new bin in the staff room?”
“Oh, I’m lovin’ it.”

Any others? Stick them in the comments!

Posted in Copywriting | 7 Comments »

Let’s get digital. An interview with Matt Sawyer of Datadial

22nd

Jul

by Sarah Turner

This month, I’ve managed to grab a few moments with digital marketing expert Matt Sawyer (who was one of the first industry bods I ever followed on Twitter). Matt heads up the online marketing department over at digital agency Datadial. We talked about link campaigns, the best blogs to read and why is the SEO industry coming in for some flak?

Turner Ink: You’ve been head of SEO and digital marketing at Datadial for five years now Matt. What’s changed in the industry since you joined?
Matt Sawyer: Everything and nothing. I see a lot of talk about how SEO is constantly changing, but really the fundamentals have remained the same – good content in a well organised and well structured website.

Social media has really changed link development though, and it’s forced SEOs to think a lot more creatively about who will link to them and why.

TI: So where is the SEO industry heading? What’s it going to look like in 5 years’ time?
MS: I think we’re going to be a lot more integrated with other marketing disciplines. To a lot of people we’re always the geeks in the room at the end of the corridor that nobody really understands. I think the industry itself is partly to blame for that.

Over the last couple of years though, SEOs have become far more closely integrated with development, sales, marketing and editorial teams and we’re doing a much better job of educating people, not just on what we do and why we do it, but also how it complements their roles.

TI: That’s interesting. Because there’s been a bit of SEO bashing online lately. (This is the post that springs to mind.) What are your thoughts?
MS: I completely understand why people feel that way when so many people have had bad experiences with SEOs. I think there is a real knowledge gap between the marketing managers and SMB owners that are buying-in the services and the companies that are selling them. Unfortunately, this either leads to companies taking advantage of this, or services being mis-sold.

TI: Ok Matt, how do you execute an SEO strategy? What do you do specifically?
MS: Generally for us it falls into four distinct stages:
1. Site architecture – ensuring the site is technically correct. Everything from making sure all the pages are reachable by search engines, to checking for duplicate content issues.
2. Site structure – checking that the site is organised logically, with relevant category pages.
3. Keyword research and page optimisation.
4. Link building and social media strategy.

TI: Yes, links are a major factor in the success of a site’s SERPS positioning aren’t they? How easy or difficult is it to get quality links?
MS: Links are THE biggest factor in rankings for competitive phrases. Getting good quality links is easy. Getting them in large enough quantities is harder. Social media has made the process easier and more scaleable, but you still have to rely on great ideas to make things work.

TI: I’ve locked horns with a number of so-called SEO experts who are more concerned with the mechanics of SEO and don’t give a hoot about the quality of the writing. What are your thoughts?
MS: Always write for users. There’s no point getting visitors to a page if it looks like it’s been written by a 5 year old (or me for that matter). There is no reason why a page can’t be optimised as well as written with conversions in mind.

TI: Well, I totally agree with that! What SEO tools do you use?
MS: I think most people would be surprised how few tools SEOs really use. I think there’s a misconception that we automate everything. But really the only tools we use are those that speed-up fairly menial tasks or give us more metrics to play with in Excel.

For example we use a ranking checker to monitor site rankings changes. I also use the Open Site Explorer to pull link data and site metrics into Excel. Majestic should also get an honourable mention here. I also like using Xenu which can spider an entire site, extract page metrics and export all of the data to a .csv file.

TI: Do you only optimise for Google?
MS: Realistically, yes. In the UK, especially, they have such an obscene share of the search market that they have to be the search engine that’s at the forefront of your strategy. However, most search engines work in similar ways, so you’ll find that most SEO work brings similar benefits on all search engines.

TI: But is Bing becoming more important?
MS: Slowly. I’m seeing its search share gradually start to creep up, and before long Yahoo will start to serve Bing results.

TI: What other services do you offer at Datadial?
MS: We’re a full service agency. So we do everything from design, development and hosting, through to digital marketing, email marketing and ebusiness consultancy.

TI: I know you handle online PR and reputation management for clients as well and you’ve developed an in-house reputation monitoring tool. Tell us how that works.
MS: Our reputation monitoring tool works by pulling together lots of different data sources – such as Google (news and blogs), Twitter mentions, RSS feeds and several others, which it then parses for mentions of the client name. These are then displayed in an admin control panel. A lot of similar services tend to over-complicate things, so we have tried to go the other way and keep thing as simple as possible for the user while retaining functionality.

TI: You and I are both on Twitter quite a bit. Are you finding clients want to jump on the social media bandwagon no matter what their product or service?
MS: A lot of people seem to decide that they want to do social media before they have thought about why they’re doing it and what they want to get out of it. Some companies are made for social media; others need to think about culture change before they engage in social media.

The key thing to remember is that consumers aren’t always the best group for your company to try to engage with. Often, it’s better to network online with the bloggers and journalists in your industry.

TI: Talking of bloggers – you write for the Datadial blog Matt. And, of course, you write for own blog. What topics do you cover?
MS: With the Datadial blog we write primarily for our clients, on (hopefully) interesting topics and issues that affect them and their business.

My own blog has actually been around for several years in one form or another, and I tend to use it to organise my own thoughts and rants more than anything else. I have been known to post at 3am when I have ideas that I need to get down somewhere!

TI: I hate to think what I’d blog at 3am! What other blogs do you read or recommend?
MS: The SEOMoz blog is fantastic, both for advanced SEOs and novices alike. The range of topics covered and the resources that they have available really are second to none.

Other than that I regularly read (and recommend) EConsultancy, SEOptimise, Apple Pie And Custard (who also win the prize for the strangest name), Search Engine Land, Malcolm Coles and SEO By The Sea.

TI: And last question Matt. What does a normal day look like for you?
MS: Normally I get into the office by seven. I cycle into West London from Surrey and spend around an hour reading my RSS feeds and answering emails. These days I tend to get more involved in the technical and strategic side of SEO, so that will include everything from site audits to planning structure and then organising the link and content development and social strategy. It seems I spend a lot more time at client meetings these days, so I’ll be out and about for much of the day.

TI: Thanks Matt. See you on Twitter.

Matt Sawyer is head of SEO and digital marketing at London-based digital agency Datadial and is considered one of the most influential SEOs in the UK.

He works with a wide range of clients and industries: from internationally recognized businesses to small, niche brands. His specialities include integrated digital marketing, SEO (on-page and off-page optimisation)

social media, digital PR, PPC, link development strategies and online marketing consulting.

On Twitter he describes himself as a social media junkie, part-time blogger, and full-time timewaster. Follow Matt on Twitter.

Tags: datadial, digital agency, matt sawyer, online PR, reputation management, seo, seo company, seo writing, Social media, twitter
Posted in Interviews with cool people | No comments yet »

Yeah, but, no, but, yeah…How Nationwide Building Society’s copy is more ‘whatever’ than ‘wow’

20th

Jul

by Sarah Turner

Standing in a queue at the Nationwide Building Society this week, I picked up this little leaflet. (Note to Nationwide: 9.30am, 7 people in the line and only one teller and a trainee serving. Please address this before my next visit. Ta.) Anyway, because I had nothing better to do, I started reading about Nationwide’s latest TV ad campaign which uses the characters from TV’s Little Britain, such as Vicky Pollard and Lou and Andy.

Now, I love these ads. And I like the fact that Nationwide has been brave enough to use controversial TV characters in their advertising. So when I picked up this leaflet I was hoping to read some quirky, fun, off the wall copy. Wrong.

First of all, this leaflet isn’t aimed at Joe Public: it’s actually aimed at Nationwide staff because it talks about the ‘intranet’ and ‘customer questions’, which makes the style of this leaflet even more inappropriate. (And why was it in the banking hall for me to pick up?)

Take the opening line: “Our TV ads have been designed to cut through the noise of the media.” What? Yawnsville. With all due respect to the staff at Nationwide, how many of them will know what “cut through the noise of the media” even means? I’m not sure I know.

The best bit is under customer questions. In other words, the questions customers may come in and ask.

Question: The ads talk about “Proud to be different”. How can you justify that?
Answer: Our mutual model, combined with great service, and a commitment to long-tern value for our members all make us very different to other financial service.

Ewwww. “Our mutual model”? Can you imagine any building society cashier actually saying this. Nope.

Or how about:
Question: How much has the advertising cost?
Answer: We’ve benchmarked our production costs and we’re in line with the market.

So if I went into a branch this afternoon and asked how much the ad campaign cost do you think I would get the answer above?

Was this written by the ad agency and then butchered in-house by some corporate bod who had been on a marketing course? Or was it knocked together by an intern in the marketing department? ’After all, it’s only for the staff.’ It’s a shame. Because this was an opportunity for Nationwide to get their teams a-buzzin’ about the new campaign. This misses the mark by miles.

What. Ever.

Tags: advertising, bad copy, nationwide, tv ads, tv campaign
Posted in Business writing, Copywriting, Marketing | 2 Comments »

And this time…it’s personal. Why handwritten notes are making a comeback

8th

Jul

by Sarah Turner

On this blog, the other week, I was going on about old school communication, having received a handwritten letter (sort of) from my MP and a postcard from Jerry Marshall, who I’d met networking.

So, I had a few of my own postcards printed up and I’ve been sending them to people I’ve met out and about at networking events and conferences. I’ve even used them as thank you cards.

They were pretty cheap too. About £60, I think, for two hundred and something. Four colour one side and black on reverse.

I even fished out my old Waterman fountain pen to use and bought some new green ink. The downside, of course, is that my handwriting is a bit of a scrawl. And I’ve now got an inky middle finger. Sigh. Just like the old days.