 Why the world still needs human copywritersHave you heard the one about the chocolate record player? It sounds pretty sweet.
Ah, the dad joke. The bedrock of human comedic interaction. And, as yet, largely beyond the capacity of artificial intelligence. But you’d be forgiven for wondering why on earth that matters, given the fact that we’re clearly in the middle of a content-writing revolution of sorts, and making full use of the humble pun is not necessarily the top priority when it comes to crafting the words that connect you to your ideal customers. Do dad jokes make sales? Well, no. Not necessarily. (Except where they do, of course, which is where brand voice comes into its own.) But this isn’t about the dad joke, not at its heart. This is about the limits of what AI can do. And why, as a copywriter, I’m not worried about being automated out of existence. Quite the contrary, in fact.
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 Creating high-performing videos is easy when you've got great copyIt’s no secret that video content is a huge component of modern online marketing and that trend is set to grow in 2023. With 91% of businesses using video as part of their marketing strategy and 82% of internet traffic driven by video content, it’s a huge slice of the digital pie. If you’re one of the 70% of brands planning to take the plunge into video creation this year, here are some of the ways a copywriter can help make your content stand out from the crowd.
 Why your word choice might be costing you salesOne thing you will never find me doing is making blanket statements about the passive voice. In addition to copywriting, I’m a published novelist, and I know perfectly well that the passive voice is a respectable, functional and necessary element of the English language. There are some sentences that simply don’t work as intended in the active voice (“She was elected by over 50% of voters,” for example, transposes inelegantly from the passive), and I have little time for the kind of advice that suggests this particular construction should be avoided (see what I did there?) at all costs.
However. Copywriting is not like novel writing. There are crossover points, for sure – both involve telling a story, both strive to activate the reader’s imagination, and both involve evoking the reader’s senses in the service of an overall goal. But the key difference is that the goal of copywriting is to sell: an item, a service, a company, an idea. That’s where the passive voice makes things more complicated. Here’s why.  Five key things to avoid when writing product descriptions that convert“If you build it, they will come,” might be true of baseball pitches and long-dead sporting legends, but this far into the twenty-first century it certainly doesn’t apply to websites. And even when you’ve got your potential customers as far as your sales page, you’ve got a tiny window to shift them from “potential” to “actual.” When it comes to online retail, your sales page needs to be working hard if you’re going to make it convert, and a poorly thought out product description can actively harm your bottom line – according to Nielson Norman Group, a massive 20% of lost sales are down to lack of product information.
If you’re doing any of the following, it’s probably costing you money. Here’s why. |
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