Copywriting

There are two very key factors in producing engaging and effective copy: an innate and informed flair for language and thorough knowledge of the intended effect of the copy to be produced.

The copywriter may have to take into account linguistic devices such as puns and wordplay, active/passive and corporate voice, tone, terminology (without sounding jargonistic), style guides and even specific terms to be avoided. There are typically 4 types of copy: expository (articles and reports), narrative (stories, company histories), descriptive (product descriptions, guides) and persuasive (sales and promo materials). Each of these four types requires its own specific approach to be adopted by the copywriter, to create copy that has the desired pragmatic effect.

So, how do we achieve this together?

Quite simply, through effective communication with the client. I have the experience and ability to adapt my written style to any requirement, provided I have sufficient information about the intended readership, desired image to be portrayed and the end effect to be achieved. Armed with this information, and any supporting brief documentation relating to style, voice and structure, I will be able to create content containing a powerful hook that engages your target demographic on a human level, ensuring that they will read on, thus enabling the desired effect to be achieved.

In an ideal world, the copy produced at this stage would be perfect for the job, but of course this can seldom be the case. The next stage of fine-tuning entails dialogue between myself and the client to tweak the content to bring it in line with exactly what the client requires. The key to the approach at this stage is not to be at all proprietorial about the text that I have created; after all, the content belongs to the client and my involvement as a third party should not be obvious to the client’s audience!