If you’ve been writing your own copy since you started in email marketing, but now believe your time could be best spent doing your proper job, you’ll want a copywriter. There are lots out there. How difficult can it be to find the one you want? Evidently, it can be very difficult. There’s a lot … READ MORE »
Everyone is a writer in the same way that everyone is a plumber. You turn on a tap and water comes out. That’s cool. However, if you fail to secure a compression joint the same thing happens only in the wrong place. That’s writing for you. Writing for an email marketing campaign is not easy … READ MORE »
You might think that by using the word ‘limit’ we are setting the bar much too low. Wouldn’t eradicate, eliminate, remove be better options? If my years of copywriting have taught me anything it is mistakes will happen. Errors can run the gamut, from wrong colour for the banner headline to a double entendre going … READ MORE »
I have a close relative who runs a copy agency, employing a dozen or so creators, each concentrating on a particular subject. Others are called on as and when required. The latter includes me. If her dedicated creator struggles with high demand, I get a phone call. She was worried that contracts might slow given … READ MORE »
Like a lot of writers, I regularly ask someone whose work I admire to check my copy. They don’t look for literals, poor grammar or the occasional over-used cliché, but instead read through a few randomly-selected submissions, not only for email marketing, and criticise them. It’s a bit of a risk, but only to my … READ MORE »
When Volkswagen’s advertising agency, the wonderful Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB), produced the genre-confounding Think Small series of adverts for the VW Beetle, it was as much due to a change in the way their teams were organised as the actual graphic design. Their system has since been accepted as the norm across the industry, and … READ MORE »
One of the cherished exercises of those who run creative writing courses is to get the students to justify what a particular adjective or adverb, sentence or paragraph, adds to the sense of whatever it is the copy is about. It’s a useful exercise. Its strength lies in the fact that there is a promise, … READ MORE »
My English literature teacher did not like Ernest Hemingway. Even in those days, when he was all but eulogised, she found his machismo repellent and, as a hater of cruelty to animals, his love of bullfighting placed him, as far as she was concerned, beyond the pale. Yet she constantly praised his writing style. He … READ MORE »
There seems to be an increasing use of stock images on marketing emails and newsletters. I’ve nothing against them. If you lack the ability or facilities to produce stunning images that will help convert a campaign, then the options are rather limited. But that’s no excuse for uninspired images. A bare picture of the product … READ MORE »
Your inbox is probably full of marketing emails which, like mine, have a Subject Line that includes the word Coronavirus. I’d count mine, but what’s the point? There are so many that it seems pointless to open one, apart from to use as a basis for a blog. One of the most irritating mistakes in … READ MORE »