With Chris Tomlin from Chester based Antidote Copywriting.

I met Chris the other day and we got chatting about writing persuasive copy.  I thought I would pass on some of the wisdom.

Attention spans are getting shorter and shorter.  We have less and less words to grab the attention of our customers and draw them into our world. These few words must work incredibly hard for us.

Engaging the reader with compelling copy and clearly highlighting the benefits of our products and services is key.

If in doubt rewrite and rewrite.  We need to hone down our copy.  Distil our thoughts and curb our enthusiasm.  It isn’t how much we know that’s important but how much we can be of benefit to our customers.

Less is more – we need to keep the text lean and clean.  Plenty of white space will make it easier to read.  Being concise and keeping the sentences short works well. We need to stay on topic and focused on the purpose.

The purpose is a clear path to the “call to action”.  Whatever that “call to action” is.  We need to lead our customers to make further enquiries, give us a call, make a purchase – somehow engage with us further.

(This reminds me of the classic marketing model that takes a customer through to a purchase: AIDA – Attention – Interest – Desire – Action).

Finally, we need to proof read everything we write.  Nothing distracts more than spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.