Jul 26th, 2021 - Category: Strategy
Even though I’m a technical writer sometimes I stray away from writing technical papers, user manuals, and datasheets and find myself writing copy destined for marketing. It’s definitely a different mindset. While it still requires distilling product complexity into a “user friendly” form, writing for marketing requires actionable facts rather than explanation. For example, a manual should clearly explain the various functions of a sound level meter and how to use its features: levels, frequency, and weighting networks. However marketing copy might focus on the benefits of using those features in a specific industry like automotive or telecom.
It’s easy to get to the point of not even seeing marketing copy. We are constantly being bombarded with advertising throughout the day on billboards, in stores, in TV commercials, online, and many other places. Online advertising is a particular offender with huge ads scattered throughout websites demanding attention before we can access the content we came for. It all begins to look the same.
As a result, I had forgotten how incredibly powerful and useful great marketing copy can be. There are of course the classic ads and commercials, but recently a new trend seems to be emerging, combining great copywriting with intelligent comedy, commentary, visuals, etc. For example, the comedian James Schrader’s Dr. Squatch Soap commercials.
Last week a new website with a strange name caught my attention, “Great Landing Page Copy.” The author’s tagline reads, “98% of websites nowadays suuuuuck so bad because their copy is so vague, so blasé, so buzzword-y, that you can’t even understand what the heck is the product.” Very true and the author, Miguel Ferreira, goes on to provide dozens of examples of what he sees as excellent marketing copy (copywriting) from a wide variety of products and services. It’s worth a quick look, but what’s also worth a read is his very short “manifesto” on copywriting for the web. The nine suggestions start with “Copywriting is a conversation, not a lecture” and end with “If you’re the client and you’re approving copy, always judge it from the consumer’s perspective, not yours.” They seem obvious and straightforward, but the shift in focus Ferreira is suggesting is deceptively powerful. Case in point, there are thousands of websites, courses, and books on this topic, but I came back to Ferreira’s work over and over.
He also inspired me to explore marketing related creativity a bit deeper and I came across articles like designer Will Chau’s “1 + 1 = 3” method on the “Everything is a Remix” blog. I’ll save an exploration of these for a future post though.
To wrap up, here is a list of principles of creativity written by artist and educator, Sister Corita Kent in 1967. They’re all great, but for this article, I think the reminder not to create and analyze at the same time is most appropriate. That and “there should be new rules next week…” Classic!
- Find a place you trust and then try trusting it for a while.
- General duties of a student: pull everything out of your teacher, pull everything out of your fellow students.
- General duties of a teacher: pull everything out of your students.
- Consider everything an experiment.
- Be self-disciplined. This means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
- Nothing is a mistake. There is no win and no fail. There is only make.
- The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all the time who eventually catch on to things.
- Don’t try to create and analyse at the same time. They’re different processes.
- Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.
- “We’re breaking all of the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.” - John Cage.
- There should be new rules next week.