Yes! You Can Write Your Own Copy!

By Andy Otes

YES! You can write your own copy is for people who can already think clearly and write reasonably well.

Most simply need to shift their focus a bit: talk benefits not features, show how they meet the prospects' needs and prove why their product or service should be chosen over what their competition offers.

This book tells the advertiser or marketer exactly what they need to know — step by step. And that means everything, with nothing held back.

YES! You can write your own copy fulfils its promise, helping the reader to write powerful, compelling web content, ads, brochures, press releases, newsletters, articles, books, manuals, corporate videos — anything that needs to convince, persuade and ring in the sales.

Above all, YES! You can write your own copy helps the reader know who they are writing to and why, to organise their material accordingly, review their drafts and produce text that talks TO not AT their prospects.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Nov 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9780992379865

Andy Otes

Andy Otes, author of 'Yes! You can write your own copy!' speaks from strength and long experience, during which his copy has created millions of dollars in sales.His experience includes copywriting for major mainstream, direct marketing, business-to-business, industrial and sales promotion agencies and an increasing number of direct clients — for whom he initially prepared a shorter version of this book.Before going out on his own 27 years ago, Andy was Creative Director in several agencies and has won awards for TV commercials, brochures and sales literature.Preferring actual writing to endless meetings and directing creative teams, he became a freelancer in 1987.Andy has written copy for countless websites, ads, brochures, press releases, special interest articles, manuals, e-books, CD booklets, commercials, corporate and training videos (directing many of them) — plus no end of of TV and radio commercials and jingles.He is also a proficient ghost-writer and editor, well able to take on the persona of his clients. He has written successful pitches for a number of high profile agency and design studio creative directors, written their magazine articles and newsletters, ghost-written and edited books and e-books and helped screenwriters sort out their screenplays and TV scripts.Andy writes long copy, short copy, funny copy, serious copy, simple copy, complex copy. His experience is broad and deep, especially in financial, business-to-business, commercial, industrial, technical, IT, agribusiness, sales promotion ... all the stuff out of the too-hard basket.As you'll gather from the knowledge he shares in Yes! You can write your own copy!, Andy can work with any level of briefing from comprehensive to minimal ... in which case he can fill in most of the blanks himself and/or ask the right questions to ensure the job is done properly.

Book preview

Yes! You CAN write your own copy*!

by

Andy Otes

*Powerful, compelling web content,

ads, brochure text, press releases,

articles, books, manuals,

commercials, corporate videos

— you name it!

This is an IndieMosh book

Brought to you by MoshPit Publishing

An imprint of Mosher’s Business Support

PO Box 147

Hazelbrook NSW 2779

http://www.indiemosh.com.au/

Copyright 2013 Andy Otes

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com. Thank you for your support.

Contents

DEDICATION

SECTION 1: BEFORE YOU BEGIN

SECTION 2: BEGINNING

SECTION 3: MIDDLE — GETTING ON WTH IT

SECTION 4: END

SECTION 5: EXTRAS

READING LIST

THE SMALL PRINT

DISCLAIMER

BLATANT PLUG

PARTING SHOT

DEDICATION

In memory of the late and great Ray Jutkins

Ray Jutkins’s wisdom is as true today as it ever was. His thinking still influences me — and most of what I know comes from him.

I learnt more from Ray Jutkins than anyone else in the business, especially after I wised up and realised I was here to help my clients sell stuff — not amuse myself with wordplay and other forms of creative self-indulgence and frippery — great fun though they are.

Once that penny dropped, I was up and running. Thanks, Ray. Couldn’t have done it without you. A lot of the knowledge here is directly from you.

Special thanks, also, to Lex Bottomley, Brian Gilchrist and Charles Cruickshank, in order of appearance.

Foreword: copywriting is not ‘rocket surgery’

Why start with this mangled metaphor?

This play on words that is already a play on words highlights the endless flexibility of the English language — and the uses to which it may be put.

Many would have you believe (surprisingly few of them copywriters) that there’s something mysterious or difficult about writing clearly and well. And persuasively.

Copywriting is a craft and as such, can be learned.

Don’t see yourself as a writer?

Of course you are: think of all the letters, memos, e-mails you’ve written — plus the essays that were part of your education.

If you can write basic English, you can write copy: text that attracts, welcomes, informs, explains, persuades.

The thing you need to be really clear about is focus. And that focus must be on your reader (website visitor, TV viewer, listener) not yourself.

This person, who might — just might — buy from you, is only interested in what you can do for them. Their question to you is:

‘What’s in it for me if I read, watch or listen to this?’

That’s the secret of copywriting right there.

Take it to heart and you will stop talking about product features and begin to explain benefits...why your prospect should buy from you and not your competition.

A bit of preliminary advice: write to sell, not show off

There’s a school of thought out in Advertising Land, among less-informed copywriters and designers, that creativity for its own sake has some sort of inherent virtue.

These are the writers who write clever-clever headlines that draw attention to themselves, not the product. Who create commercials for their film school reels, not their clients. Who help put together pretty websites that take 5,000 years to download and are then hard to navigate.

And then there are their co-conspirators: the insufficiently trained designers who sit in front of their big screens having small ideas. Who see design as some sort of kiddie jigsaw whose elements must be shifted about on their monitor until they look ‘great’.

Fortunately, these guys are in the minority but there are enough of them to cause concern.

These chuckleheads regard copy as some kind of nuisance element to be ‘dealt with’.

They place text over coloured backgrounds or use small reverse type in illegible fonts to make doubly sure they will never be read. Or chop copy just to ‘make it fit’ without a notion of what it actually says.

They claim these tactics intrigue and create interest, get attention.

Not really. Your prospects aren’t going to puzzle out what’s being said. They don’t care about you, only what you can do for them.

And getting attention? It’s very, very easy.

You only have to yell ‘****!’ into the doorway of your nearest church some sunny Sunday morning and you’ll get all the attention you could want...and more.

Does creativity have a role? A great copywriter I worked with had these words framed on his office wall:

Copy ain’t creative unless it sells

Words to write by.

SECTION 1: BEFORE YOU BEGIN

Know who you’re writing to...and why

Before you write any copy (or anything else) keep this list in mind:

Who?

What?

Why?

When?

Where?

How?

These are the words reporters are told to memorise when they begin their careers: The five Ws plus H.

No editor will accept a story unless at least these basics are covered.

You’ll improve your writing no end just by keeping them in mind every time you have something to say.

They help clarify your thinking by constantly reminding you of what you are writing, who you are talking to — and why. So...

Give your next piece of writing the WHO?