How to write copy people want to read
Find your brand’s voice
Whether you tend to gesticulate wildly, chatter away or perhaps communicate calmly, the way you talk has the power to influence people. It’s kind of what makes you, you. So how do you find your brand’s voice and use it effectively? We asked MOO’s Head of Copy for the lowdown on how to write great copy that sounds like your brand – here it is, straight from the horse’s mouth!
Writing great copy for marketing materials can send a lot of people into meltdown. Word-paralysis strikes as they grapple with self-flagellating thoughts like, “I don’t know what to say!”, ‘does that sound good?’, ‘how many times can you use the word ‘innovative’ in one sentence?”.
Sound familiar? If you’ve ever been stuck on questions like the above, one thing you may not have noticed is that they’re all about YOU. Your brand. Your messages. What you want to say and how you want to say it. Which, of course, are valid things to consider in the process of crafting prose. BUT! Writing truly effective marketing materials requires a fundamental shift in perspective.
From you… To your customer
GULP. Really? But there’s so much my customers need to know about! So many features/ services/ USPs/ offers [insert as appropriate] that I have to share!
STOP. Instead, ask yourself, with your intended audience in mind:
– What does your customer need?
– What does your customer care about?
– What does your customer want from you?
– How can you help solve your customer’s problems?
Try to put your business objectives, campaign goals or sales targets to one side, and take the time to really think about your audience. Real people, with real lives and real needs. Sometimes it’s helpful to focus your writing on talking to ONE person, to avoid slipping into ‘generic land’ of addressing a crowd.
Remember: you’re trying to start a conversation, not just talk AT people.
THIS, my friends, opens up whole new territory, no matter which particular type of marketing material you’re working on. Emails. Flyers. DM. Once you’ve got a fully rounded understanding of what you’re offering, you need to do the work to figure out WHY your customer should care about what you’re telling them.
There are no shortcuts.
Not if you want to people to engage. Without this background work, your messages will more than likely blend into the ‘noise’ of a million other brands all talking ‘at’ their customers. Ultimately, your marketing materials will go unseen, unclicked and unloved. And you’ll have spent hours fretting over the specific construct of a sentence that quite possibly no one will ever read.
Now for the hard part. APPLYING IT.
Writing with insight can only be achieved by having, funnily enough, actual insight. To some extent, the job of a writer is to use their super-human empathic powers and imagination to put themselves into their customer’s shoes – deconstructing situations, understanding connections, finding the ‘universal truths’ that will resonate with people. But they need some basic facts.
What if you don’t know a lot about your customers?
FIND OUT. It’s essential. Use this as impetus to march straight into your next marketing meeting demanding all manner of customer-knowledge-finding-exercises: focus groups, surveys, persona work, google analytics – whatever you can do to find out who your customer is, what they think, and what they want.
What if your customers are all different?
How do you stay YOU as a brand while talking to different people? This question comes up a lot in copy. And to understand the answer, we have to delve a little bit into brand Tone of Voice. Something every company should have, but not everyone does.
Your ‘voice’ is essentially who you are as a brand. Are you authoritative? Irreverent? Playful? Once you’ve got your core characteristics nailed, just like a person, your ‘tone’ will change depending on who you’re talking to and where. For example, you at a party with friends on a Friday night is NOT the same as you at the office on a Monday. But you’re still you. You sound a little different. You talk about different things. But you don’t morph into an entirely different person altogether.
What if you don’t have a clear Tone of Voice?
Get one. QUICK. It’s not something you can just invent – people have a great filter for disingenuous ‘me too’ brands. It has to come from a place of truth, so do some digging. Find out who you are and what you’re all about. Similar to the customer-insight exercise, ask yourself:
– What does your brand stand for?
– What does your brand care about?
– What does your brand mean to your employees/ customers/ supply chain?
– What does your brand do that’s different from your competitors?
This kind of work is invaluable for businesses big and small, old and new. You could be an established brand that needs to evolve or get back to its roots. Or a start-up that’s just finding its voice for the first time. Arming yourself with a clear brand voice and real customer insight is the secret to getting your marketing materials seen, read and shared.
Once you know who you are, and you know who you’re talking to, now you can have an actual conversation. When you speak, people listen. Maybe not all of them, but enough of them. They get you, and they know that YOU get them. They may not lap up every single word that you write, but they’re open, receptive and engaged.
Liked this? Then you’ll love telling your brand story.
Whether you’re hoping to attract new customers, inject some newness into your business or maintain your market position, a brand refresh may be in order. This is exactly what 500px, an online community of photographers and stock photo marketplace, did last last year. Here’s the story behind their refresh.
Why redesign?
For 500px, the reason for the rebrand was simple: Growth. When 500px launched the high-end photography photo-sharing site six years ago, they were determined to bring the “best of the best in photography” to market. With 7 million registered photographers and over 65 million photos to date, 500px has reached a certain level of visibility. But as their community grew they discovered the original logo wasn’t translating to the audience as well as it had in the past.
From old to new
The former logo, which was designed by co-founder, Evgeny Tchebotarev in 2009, worked well for six years. It was recognizable — with the infinite zoom, focal length and camera references. “It’s scary to change something that’s so important [and recognizable] to your brand. We knew that we needed to do this redesign to best represent the brand and what we do. But there were clear objectives before we kicked off the project and we were keen to keep the existing brand values” the 500px team was determined for the logo to “match” their community.
Process
The team appointed branding experts at Focus Lab, to work through all phases of the redesign. Ellen Desmarais, VP of Marketing, led the effort on the 500px side, working very closely with Focus Lab’s Branding Designer Chase Turberville and Creative Director Bill Kenney to bring the new look to life. But the ask was big: Executing on a logo that would convey personal expression, or an artist’s touch within the mark, to suit their community of expert photographers — and fitting a lot of different concepts into one.
New to Focus Lab in August, Turberville wasted no time and dug in to the discovery process, business and competitive audit before moving to creative concepting. He spent time in analog mode, drawing the ideas in his head, working them out on tables covered in butcher paper, with books and other materials by his side. “We want to get as many concepts in front of the client as possible during this ‘throwing at the wall’ phase.”
After eight weeks and 50 different iterations of concepts, the collective team narrowed to two concepts they were comfortable moving forward with. Turberville cites the two concepts, “running parallel for quite some time — it was hard knowing which road to go down. Approaching the deadline, we had to choose at the fork in the road.” They hit a stalemate, and as the one producing 95% of the design work, Turberville, weighed in with a recommendation for 500px to “preserve their reputation as photography experts” by pursuing concept #1 … and they did.
The new look 500px
In effect, the mark is sophisticated and text-focused, preserving the rich history of the name with the “500px” inside the mark, and shaped to look like a lens. It’s photographer-focused, with the “p” (or photographer) in the middle — and it also resembles a film canister.
The new mark has been likened to a fingerprint because of the treatment of concentric circles. But that wasn’t Turberville’s initial intention. “I was trying to mimic the movement of the camera lens – which brings in concentric circles = community – then it started to turn into a fingerprint. It turned out this way organically.”
Launch into focus
Despite the collaborative nature of the relationship between creative and client, there were some nerves around the launch last October. The team’s hard work paid off as the new look of 500px has received high praises overall from both the design and photography communities, as well as positive press reactions. “We’re having an easier time talking about who 500px is and what we do,” Shutsa says. “We did a lot of research and user-testing, and it was obvious to our audience that we’re a photography company.”
“I love it — and I’ve never been through such a big unveiling before,” Turberville says. This refresh was more than just a new logo. “It was the start of a new 500px, which is why we created meetthenew.500px.com. We have an awesome and engaged community, and we thought it would be great to show them why we did it.”
Have you been through a business-wide rebrand? Or perhaps have been inspired to ‘press refresh’? Let us know in the comments below.
Printfinity (yes, we made up a word) is our unique technology that allows you to print up to 50 different designs in each pack of Business Cards meaning you can present yourself in a different way every time. Here are some ways Printfinity can help you.
You’re a…Consultant
You’ve aced the art of networking, can spot a potential business opportunity within 50 feet and you’re able to deploy the perfectly tailored elevator pitch within seconds…. But what if your current cards don’t match your slick words? Fear not, with Printfinity you get to be 50 different identities in one pack of business cards. So whether it’s a coffee meeting or something a little more formal, it means you’ll always have the right card. Winner. Start making!
You’re a…Fashion Designer
You’ve made the final touches to your next collection and your focus is now less on hemlines and more on making headlines. You’ve locked in meetings with buyers, PRs and RSVP’d to the best parties and your lookbook is looking tight. You are on fire… But what about your business cards, are they as fresh as your latest collection? Printfinity let’s you choose up to 50 different designs in each pack of cards, which means you can replicate your lookbook, show your full palette and make the right impression every time. (They make a nice gift for all those buyers and PRs too). Now, make your cards and go strut your stuff.
You’re a…Photographer
You’ve returned home after spending the last few months capturing the spirit and street food of South America. The experience has fired you up and after editing your 3,571 shots down to your strongest pieces, your new portfolio is looking hotter than a chipotle chilli and you’ve secured some meetings in the next few weeks… But what about your business cards, do they reflect your latest work? Printfinity let’s you choose up to 50 different designs in each pack of cards, which means you can choose your best work from your travel portfolio (or wedding photography for that matter). Start making!
You’re an…Illustrator
You’ve ridden a wave of illustration briefs and you can’t churn out the drawings fast enough. But your contract is almost over and you’re back on the freelance hustle looking for your next gig. Your digital portfolio is bursting with stylish artwork, but with so many referrals made in person, are your business cards up to date? The way you present yourself needs to be as ‘visual’ as your thinking so why not try Printfinity? It let’s you choose up to 50 different designs so whether you choose to create a large collage or individual masterpieces, you’ll get people talking every time. Start making!
We love it when you share experiences of creating your business cards with us. That’s exactly what Hanneke de Wit, founder of Dutch creative agency Tangram Studio did. We liked the use of our new gold foil finish so much, we decided to share it with you too. Over to you Hanneke!
For a while now, MOO has been offering Letterpress Business Cards and I love them! Though I really like MOO’s designed templates, as a graphic designer with my own creative studio, I opted for designing my own.
I was really surprised to find out that you could in fact order your own designs in the new Gold Foil, Spot Gloss and Raised Spot Gloss though! To give it a try, I ordered 50 cards. The paper stock that is used is twice as thick as the standard MOO Business Cards and the Gold Foil and Raised Spot Gloss give a nice relief you can both see and feel.
MOO’s specifications say lines should be at least 0.5 points. This is what I did and all lines turned out very nice and sharp. The spaces between shapes though were a bit melted and not as sharp as the rest if the design. I wish they would give specs on this as well. For the back of my card I made a design containing my logo and my logo in outlines. To get the best results, I would advise to only use lines and uncomplicated forms when designing for Gold Foil.
If you would like to see all the cards and finishing’s MOO offers, you can order a Sample Pack. A must have when you’re a paper lover like me!
Discover the Tailored Collection.
We know you love TED talks, but don’t always have the time. So you don’t miss out on learning something new, here’s our two-minute lowdown.
Here’s the scoop from TED talk “How to Find The Work You Love” by Scott Dinsmore.
Firstly, are you climbing the wrong ladder?
After doing all the right things after graduating, Scott Dinsmore realized he hated his job. He took Warren Buffett’s advice “taking jobs to build up for resume is the same as saving up sex for old age”, quit and went looking for people who only did work they loved. He read hundreds of books, took countless people to lunch and asked thousands of questions. He took all of the information he collected and created his Passion Work Framework, three steps for anyone wanting to transform their career or work.
1. Become a self-expert
If you don’t understand yourself, you’ll have no idea what you’re looking for. Being intentional with your self-knowledge will set you up for nailing your purpose. Set your direction with these critical questions:
Identify your strengths
Use the book and online tool Strengths Finder 2.0 to help. What would you wake up and do no matter the pay? What are you naturally good at and people thank you for?
Identify your priorities
Family? Health? Achievements? How are you currently making decisions about these things? You might need to refresh your approach to this so you don’t compromise on what you really care about. For Scott Dinsmore, how to find work you love starts with knowing your values.
Pay attention to yourself
Scott says: “we learn things every day… about what we love, what we hate, what we’re good at, what we’re terrible at”. Be mindful of your daily experiences to see what makes you tick. Also look at those around you, especially those that inspire you. What’s special about them? What do they do differently? Keep track of all these observations and read back often.
2. Prove yourself wrong
Once you’ve got your direction use this to push your limits. Scott says, find “your own impossibilities” and make “incremental pushes”. Whether it’s swimming in the deep dark ocean, or public speaking or starting a business; find all the little and big things you thought impossible and crush them. The more you do this, the more rocket fuel for personal achievement you’ll have.
3. Surround yourself with the right people
Finally, Scott suggests “the fastest way to do things you don’t think can be done is to surround yourself with people already doing them”. You want to spend the most time with people who will keep on you track to pursue the things that matter the most. You want them to hold your bar higher.
You’re 100% in control
Finally, in the How to Find Work You Love TED talk, Scott reminds us that “these three steps are “100 percent in our control” and the only limitation is your imagination. He’s a full-time champion of his approach and runs “Live Your Legend”, where you can find training and tools, and read about other people that have made the switch.
Watch Scott’s full TED talk:
Scott Dinsmore tragically passed away in September 2015 climbing Kilimanjaro while travelling with his wife. In his short life, he established Live Your Legend, a thriving community helping people discover the work they were born to do.
Like Scott Dinsmore’s TED Talk? Check out our summary of Amy Cuddy: Your body language may shape who you are.
Written by Martin Douglas Hendry