The Turner Ink blog contains rants, bloopers, observations and opinions. It also has handy tips on grammar and punctuation such as colons: semicolons; and full stops. As well as some very useful ‘how tos’. Feel free to leave comments. Be nice though.

Turner Ink

Copywriting Services London

Archive for the 'Marketing' category

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 addresNationwide Building Society TV campaign leaflets 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?)

Nationwide Building Society leaflet 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.

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Tags: advertising, bad copy, nationwide, tv ads, tv campaign
Posted in Business writing, Copywriting, Marketing | comments icon 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.

 

Turner Ink postcard

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So far they’ve been really well received. And they’re a nice alternative to email.

What do you think? Do you send handwritten notes at all?

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Tags: handwritten notes
Posted in Business writing, Marketing | comments icon 9 Comments »

What would you do with this flyer? Read it or bin it?

19th
May
by Sarah Turner

I get loads of direct mail. I give most of it a cursory glance – more out of professional interest than anything else – before tossing it in the bin. And you probably do the same.

It seems that Amnesty knows this. Because their latest direct mail piece has on its front cover:

This flyer will ask you to make six choices. Here’s the first: Read it or bin it.

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Now there’s no way I’m going to bin it now. The least I’m going to do is open it. Inside follow more choices:

Speak out or stay silent? Object or accept? Make a stand or walk away? Act or do nothing?

And then finally Join or not join?

Amnesty Flyer inside

 

The copy includes the line ‘for these and many, many more the fact you chose to read this leaflet rather than bin it, is a source of unimaginable help.’ Powerful stuff.

As a direct mail piece this is superb. Eye catching, emotional, appealing and with a strong call to action.

Find our more about Amnesty.

 

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Posted in Copywriting, Marketing | comments icon No comments yet »

Why old school communication gets my vote

6th
May
by Sarah Turner

If you’re in the UK, you’ve probably been inundated with marketing bumph from your parliamentary candidates in the last few weeks. They’re often garish, glossy flyers stuffed full of daft images of various political bods grinning gormlessly as they plant a tree. And they tend to go from my letter box to my recycling box with hardly a glance.

But yesterday, this arrived from my Lib Dem MP Edward Davey: a personal letter. Well, not quite. It’s one of those handwritten-but-printed letters but it still felt more personal than all the other stuff I’d received.

 Ed Davey MP letter   Ed Davey Mp (2) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And do you know what? I read the whole thing from beginning to end.

A few weeks ago, at a networking event, I met Jerry Marshall from Tozer Marshall Design in Kingston. We chatted. We swapped business cards. The usual. And then a few days later I received a handwritten postcard from him saying thanks for the chat and hopefully we can work together at some point in the future. How cool? I actually called him up to say thank you, and the postcard is now pinned to my wall.

Is this old style personal correspondence making a bit of a comeback in these days of impersonal emails, tweets and texts?

James over at Freelance Switch thinks so. In a blog post this week James has some great old school ideas:

Write a handwritten thank-you note to your clients, then tuck in an extra business card – and a request that the client pass on that card to a colleague who could use your services.

So I’m digging out my fountain pen and I’m getting writing. Which only leaves the question: Should I vote for Ed Davy or Monkey the Drummer from the Monster Raving Loony Party? (And yes, he really is standing in Kingston.)

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Tags: handwritten notes
Posted in Business writing, Marketing | comments icon 5 Comments »

How to write a blog post…when you’ve run out of ideas

13th
Apr
by Sarah Turner

Let’s be frank. Writing a blog post every day, every other day, or even once a week can be a right pain in the neck. Unless of course your actual job is writing for a blog.

But if you’re a freelancer or you run your own company, it’s easy to put your own blog on the back burner while you get your real work done. Especially if you’ve run out of ideas about what to write.   

But stick with it. Because your blog is one of the easiest, quickest and cheapest ways of getting freshly baked content on to your site – and Google loves fresh content; it’s a great way of getting traffic to your site; and it’s the perfect way to build relationships with your customers and attract new clients.

But what to write about? Try some of these ideas for inspiration.

  • Interview someone in your industry or someone you’re inspired by
  • Ask a question
  • Review a product and show how you use it in your business
  • Tell a personal story and let people know the real you
  • Review a book
  • Write about something that affects your industry
  • Read the Sunday papers for inspiration (I especially like the Sunday Times magazine)
  • Write a response to something someone else has posted, giving your point of view (and link to the original post)
  • Review a piece of software and show how it’s helped your business
  • Take photos on your camera phone, whilst you’re out and about, and use in a post
  • Write a post on something that’s in the news today (look at the BBC website first thing or see what’s trending on Twitter)
  • Use a band or a movie as inspiration. The Sex and the City post over at Copyblogger was one of my favourites, like, ev-ah.
  • Do a survey – and then publish the results
  • Write about how you screwed up or how you learned a lesson
  • Write a How to blog post…

And if you have a flash of inspiration for a post, leave yourself a voice memo on your iPhone or write a note in Evernote.

Any more ideas? Share in the comments.

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Tags: blog writing, evernote
Posted in Business writing, Marketing, Social media | comments icon 2 Comments »

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