Copywriting
Professional copywriting services and Content Development
Professional copy writing is not just a formulation of ideas about a service of product that you would like to introduce to your market. It is a very creative process that essentially must capture its audience, create favourable emotion whilst being informative and easily understandable. Now if you think that was a mouthful think of all the types of different things you have read in your life from magazines to the inside of your favourite Music CD to the team information brochure of your favourite rugby team to what you are reading right now.
Every written word is copy writing in one form or another and requires a sensitive, but highly creative person to be able to contrastingly write about so many different subjects. For the purpose of this document I will only focus on the copy writing skills we use here at 1021 media and design, but do not think that this is by any means the only types of copywriting skills and styles available out there.
Original slogans and pay-off lines
From a company that deals with new and upcoming companies on a daily basis it is probably one of our most frequent requests, original slogans and pay-off lines. Even long existing companies often require the addition of a slogan for their company when they revamp their corporate identity. A well constructed slogan or pay-off line can blow fresh life into a stagnate operation, just with the emotions it creates within the reader. How to construct a slogan? It often has something to do with the company’s vision or mission statements which are in direct relation to the heart of the company’s founding member/s. Ultimately a slogan or pay-off line must be catchy but still very relevant to the growth and possibilities of a company. One should not underestimate the power of a great slogan.
It is not just used for brand awareness in your advertising campaign but also serves as a motivational tool for the company’s employees. I am almost certain that Nike’s slogan “Just do it” is widely used in the company itself to create an internal culture of excellence and quality. Can you think of any other well known company that inspires their employees with their slogan? Concluding slogans and pay-off lines, I would like to end by saying that they form the basis of the cloud the company travels upon upwards, towards success and should thus be seen as a fundamental part of the corporate identity / brand rather than an advertising nicety. What does your company’s slogan do for you?
Website Copywriting
The question here is what the copy is going to be used for. Is its main purpose for search engine optimisation use or is it of specific informational value to your client and website browser. The first is fairly easy to accomplish although very costly when making use of a professional copywriter mainly due to the density of the copy required as well as the research that goes into such a project. The latter how ever can be compiled by yourself and then just handed over to a professional editor for review.
Remember that you know your company best and that you understand its place in the market most accurately. The more information you can give a copy writer about your company, its products and services the better the person will be able to understand your requirements. It is true that not all of us have the unique ability and vast general knowledge that it requires to be a copywriter but it is also true that each corporation’s owner started their company with a dream in mind. They are effectively the driving force behind the organisation; the copywriter is merely the enabler of words into ideas.
Brochure Copywriting
Now we are talking specialised copywriting. Writing marketing material of any sorts is highly commercial and should be directly related to the target audience. Although the company’s products and services is the main focus of the copywriting it is the culture of the targeted audience that will dictate the feel of the overall product. For instance; one would expect different writing styles when you are reading a brochure from a very exclusive country lodge than reading a brochure from an electronic games centre. An experienced copywriter will be able to capture any audience, thus expanding the reach of the target market to its optimum.
1021 media and design has such a copywriter in house for the convenience of its clients, and feel confident that we will be able to supply our clients with quality copywriting skills that will ultimately compliment the work of the designers to form a high quality product that you will be proud to send into the market for view to both your competition and prospective clients alike.
What do we need to compile the copy for your brochure?
- A detailed description of the products and services that you what to advertise.
- A short brief on the intended target market that is going to view the brochure.
- A short brief on the internal culture of the company.
- Some high quality photos that will accompany the copy.
- And last but not least, correct contact details for the company, possibly including a map that can direct prospective clients to your premises, if it is a retail based organisation.
Copywriting is often a very visual art in the sense that it more often than not, accompanies photos of products and services. For this reason it is important for the copywriter to be in the possession of the specific photographs that you intend to publish in your brochure to enable the copy to correctly relate to the images displayed. Essentially the brochure is a promotional material and should include the other aspects of marketing in its information package such as product management, pricing and distribution. The brochure should also be a strong branding exercise and thus display any unique attribute the company possess over its competitors. So before you start off with printing thousands of brochures, make sure you know where they are going, what they will be used for and exactly how you are going to get the right brochure into the hands of the right consumer in order to limit the risk of having these beautifully written and designed leaflets end up in the trash bin.
Advertisement Copywriting
Television Copywriting
Not as complicated as with radio copywriting because this copy is accompanied by visual displays that can fill in the creative blanks that the copy may seize to capture. As positive as visual aspects are to television advertising it also has a drawback. It does not leave much room for the view to add his own creative thinking to the advertisement which often prevents the viewer from identifying with the advertisement’s personal figures.
Ever wondered why people tend to like the “book” more that they did the “movie” made from that book?
Because when you read or hear something creative you tend to form a visual in your minds eye of what is most appealing to you and this is different for each and every one of us even if we are listening or reading the same text. Strange, but true! Creatively put radio adverts often capture a wider spectrum of the targeted audience for exactly this reason but more about this later. Most successful television adds commonly use less copy and more visual with the copy not stating the obvious but rather contrasting the visual, forcing the viewer to concentrate on both what he is hearing and seeing together in order to make sense of the commercial.
Or the copy could only be semi-descriptive forcing the viewer to concentrate on what he is seeing in order to complete the comprehension of the concept. Television copywriting is thus more reliant on the interesting play of words than actual descriptive narrative.
Radio Copywriting
Probably one of the more challenging types of copy writing but also most certainly the most interesting. The weight of success lies with the copywriter’s ability to transform the listener’ immediate environment into an advertising space. It must be catchy to entice the listener to momentarily stop …and listen, taking in the message that is being transmitted. Next time you are listing to your favourite radio station (probably on your way to work) be conscious of what adverts you literally choose to listen to and ask yourself why?
This is a good starting point when you are thinking of taking your product onto the radio waves. There is no question that radio advertising is much more cost effective than television adds, and often reach a portion of your selected target market that would normally not watch television but rather choose to listen to their favourite radio station while they work. Being competitive in the field of radio advertisements you need to capture the creative eye of your audience in its superlative form. There is no room for error here and many different factors, just like with television advertising, needs to be taken into consideration before you instruct your copywriter to create for you something special.
A current event that is relative to your target market is often a good place to start as they (your target market) will be listening for these announcements but your advertisement should not be restricted to predictable text. Another possible good place to look out for is advertising with contrasting adverts already on the radio. For instance; advertising a diet product just after a well known restaurant’s commercial. The point in making with the above statements is that it is imperative that you know where you will advertise as with any medium in order to optimise the quality and relevance of your advert’s copy content.
Your media and design agency will do the necessary research for you and help to guide your advertisement into just the right spot for maximum awareness and exposure. As with television commercials, radio commercials are also subject to when, who is watching what. These statistics can be obtained from either your nearest broadcasting company and will be a good indication for us when you product should be advertised. I would however like to stress that these are only estimates and not information that should be seen as cast in stone with no leeway.
A good media and design agency will be able to direct you in the right direction.
Multimedia Copywriting and Story boards
This is much like television copy writing but focus more intently on the exact viewing audience that general television commercials. Multimedia presentations have a very definite purpose and target audience and is thus specifically written to comply with that audience’s requirements. It is often longer than the average television advertisement or insert and serves a unique purpose. The process of multimedia copy writing is however, much like television ads and will commonly form part of a larger project plan. The copy will be written to accompany specific visuals at specific intervals that will lead the viewer into a chronological order of information transmission.
If the multimedia is accompanied by voice over the copywriter will indicate in the script aspects such as tone of voice and specific pauses that will create the correct emotions with the viewers. With multimedia copywriting the writer takes on the role of director as well as author because very often the voice artist is only presented with the actual copy and not with a complete set of instructions of what the multimedia is going to portray and he or she will not have the actual visuals of the multi media in front of him making it difficult to accurately create the right feelings at the right moments with out some sort of direction.
As laboursome as this may sound, multimedia copywriting can be one of the most rewarding experience for a professional copywriter being able to literally bring life to a creation that involves so many individual specialised components in order to create the ultimate successful presentation. Personally I feel that this the going to be the gateway for all types of presentations in the future be it corporate or other wise informal. The average man on the street in demanding more and more of their presentation environment. Where an ordinary powerpoint presentation may have done the trick in the past, it will certainly be seen as a second hand effort to impress in the future.