We wrote the article to highlight the fact that some copywriters don’t focus on the customer in their copy. We looked at some copywriting samples from advertising agencies to show that they use the words ‘our clients’ when the word ‘you’ would be more effective.

We didn’t pull this idea out of thin air. All the copywriting books that we’ve read recommend using second person (’you’) in your copywriting.

For instance, a seminal work on copywriting is The Copywriter’s Handbook by Robert Bly. This book was first published in 1985 and has been reprinted several times.

In The Copywriter’s Handbook, Bly writes about what he calls ‘customer-oriented copy’.

One technique to help you write for the reader is to address the reader directly as ‘you’ in the copy ─ just as I am writing to you in this book. Copywriters call this the ‘you orientation.’ Flip through a magazine and you’ll see that 90 percent of the ads contain the word ‘you’ in the body copy.

Bly shows the difference between customer-oriented copywriting and advertiser-oriented copywriting in the following examples.

1. BankPlan is the state-of-the-art in user-friendly, sophisticated financial software for small business accounts receivable, accounts payable, and general ledger applications.

2. BankPlan helps you balance your books and manage your cash flow. It also keeps track of customers who haven’t paid their bills. Best of all, the program is easy to use — you don’t need special training.

Which  do you think is more effective?

In the previous copywriting blog post we showed that many advertising agencies fail to apply ‘you orientation’ in their copywriting. Their copy is more like the first example above.

Robert Bly isn’t the only one to write about customer-oriented (second person) copy. If you do international Google searches for the phrases “second person” copywriting and customer-oriented copywriting you’ll finds hundreds of copywriting blog posts and articles about the benefits of writing directly to your readers.

So when advertising agencies write ‘our clients’ instead of ‘you’ in their own promotional copy, they aren’t ‘wrong’ ─ they’re just not being effective as they can be.

We welcome your comments.

The consensus among copywriters is that using second person when copywriting is one of the best ways to connect with your readers.

I did some research and found that many advertising and marketing agencies don’t know this simple rule in their own copywriting. Some of these firms are internationally recognised as the top marketing and advertising agencies. You’d think they would know better, but I guess a big name doesn’t always guarantee quality copywriting.

Let’s look at a few of the examples of how some marketing and advertising agencies fail to use second person in their copywriting (I’m not mentioning any names here because I don’t want to offend anyone).

Examples of copywriting that aren’t customer focused

1.We offer our clients a full spectrum of advertising related services.

2. We offer our clients common sense advice that helps them grow their businesses.

3. Our attention to detail and timelines and our solid production base enables us to offer our clients the best results.

4. This level of integration allows us to offer our clients coordinated campaigns.

5. We offer our clients a full suite of communications solutions including brand strategy, market strategy, marketing support, public relations, website analysis, web design, web marketing, and advertising services.

6. We offer our clients a comprehensive range of programs and services.

7. We offer our clients an insightful and personal approach, full of creative energy, and dedication to your individual business needs.

8. We offer our clients strategic and creative leadership across a full array of marketing communications.

Do you see what these companies have missed with their copywriting?

They use the phrase ‘our clients’ when they should write ‘you’ in their copywriting.

Why is this important?

Copywriting is selling with words

Copywriting is the art of selling with words. One of the basic rules of any sales interaction is ‘assume the sale’. If you use second person in your copywriting, you are assuming that the reader is already a customer. If you are timid and afraid to assume the sale, your copywriting won’t be as effective.

We can tell from the examples above that many copywriters don’t have sales experience. They might have strong credentials in public relations, marketing or journalism, but they don’t understand sales and the art of persuasion.

Simple copywriting changes can make a big difference

Let’s quickly fix the sample sentences to see how simple changes greatly improve the copywriting.

1. We offer you a full spectrum of advertising related services.

2. We offer you common sense advice that helps you grow your business.

3. Our attention to detail and timelines and our solid production base enables us to offer you the best results.

4. This level of integration allows us to offer you coordinated campaigns.

5. We offer you a full suite of communications solutions including brand strategy, market strategy, marketing support, public relations, website analysis, web design, web marketing, and advertising services.

6. We offer you a comprehensive range of services and programs.

7. We offer you a personal and insightful approach, full of creative energy, and dedication to your individual business needs.

8. We offer you strategic and creative leadership across a full array of marketing communications.

There are other changes that I would make to improve these examples, but I only want to deal with one issue in this copywriting blog post.

How to measure customer focus in your copywriting

At Word Nerds we use a free online tool that measures how well we focus on the customer in our copywriting. It’s called the WeWe Customer Focus Calculator and you can find it at http://www.futurenowinc.com/wewe.htm.

Simply enter a web address, or paste your copywriting in, and it tells you how much you are focusing on your company in your copywriting versus how much you are focusing on your customer.

These are sample results of  some copywriting we checked on the site.

For the copy you submitted:

Your Customer Focus Rate: 85.71%

You have 6 instances of customer-focused words.

Your Self Focus Rate: 14.29%

You have 0 instances of self-focused words.

You have 1 instance of the Company Name.

You speak about your customers approximately 6 times as often as you speak about yourself.

Excellent!

If we find our copywriting has a low Customer Focus Rate, we go back and improve it.

You don’t have to look very far to see examples of poor copywriting. Large and respected advertising agencies don’t necessarily know what good copywriting is. They fail to speak to their customers when copywriting.

Remember that copywriting is about customers, so speak to them directly by writing ‘you’.  

One of the first rules of copywriting is to keep it simple. When copywriting for any format you need to keep in mind that people don’t like reading long or complicated copy.

Have you ever looked at a brochure, website or letter with too much text? Most likely, you put it down without reading it. Poor copywriting is to blame. You’ve probably received eight-page sales letters in the mail. Typically, these have yellow highlighting and several postscripts at the end. I never read these when I receive them. I have never bought anything from one of these sales letters ─ they are too long.  

Simple and Effective Copywriting Requires Time and Effort

When copywriting, it takes time and effort to put more effort to produce simple and effective copy. Mark Twain summarised this well when he wrote, “I am sorry this is such a long letter, but I did not have the time to write a short one.” He wasn’t referring to copywriting per se, but his statement can be applied to copywriting.

Unfortunately, some copywriters promote the idea of lengthy sales letters (also called sales sheets) as an effective form of copywriting. A few of these copywriters deliver expensive copywriting seminars on how to write these sales letters.

A basic copywriting tip – use simple words

One of the most basic tips to reduce the length of your copywriting is to use simple words. Copywriting that includes simple words takes up less space and is easier to read.

Here are some ideas of how you can use simple words to improve your copywriting.

                        Instead of:                            Use:

                        accomplish                            do

                        ascertain                                find out

                        disseminate                           send out, distribute

                        endeavour                              try

                        expedite                                 hasten, speed up

                        facilitate                                  make easier, help

                        locality                                    place

                        optimum                                 best, greatest, most

                        utilise                                      use

You can see that simple words convey the same idea with fewer letters. If you apply this idea to your copywriting project, your copy will be much easier to read and take up less space on the page. It’s more inviting to readers, so there’s a better chance your copy will be read.

You can apply this concept to wordy phrases by replacing them with single words when copywriting.

Instead of:                            Use:

                        with regard to                        about

                        by means of                           by

                        in the event that                      if

                        until such time                        until

                        during such time                    during

                        subsequent to                        after

                        it would appear that               apparently

                        adequate number of              enough

You can improve your copywriting if you follow the suggestions to use simple words and replace phrases with single words.

After you have completed a first draft of your copywriting project, go back and edit what you have written. Replace complicated words with simple ones (a thesaurus is a helpful tool for this) and replace phrases with single words when possible.

This blog post is about copywriting, but the concept of simplicity will improve any type of writing.

In the next copywriting blog post, we’ll look at using simple sentences for more effective copywriting.

In strategy the longest way round is often the shortest way there; a direct approach to the object exhausts the attacker and hardens the resistance by compression, whereas an indirect approach loosens the defender’s hold by upsetting his balance.

This is not to say that your prospect is your enemy, but most people view unfamiliar companies with some scepticism. Everybody has had a bad experience with a company, so if they don’t know your organisation, you need to win the customer over to your side with good copywriting.

How Can The Indirect Approach Be Applied To Writing?

Let’s look at one way the indirect approach is applied to copywriting. Case studies are a great example. These are used mostly in a business to business context. When you use a case study to promote your product or service it’s not what you call a ‘hard sell’. Instead you show your prospect how you solved a problem or met the needs of a company or person.

Writing Tips for Better Case Studies

I’ve seen many bad examples of case studies. These might have been written in house, but they could be from a freelance copywriter who doesn’t understand how they work. The most common problem with many case studies I’ve analysed is that copywriters use a selling approach that is best for writing in other persuasive formats (such as brochures or websites).

You don’t want to keep saying that your company is the best when writing a case study. In a case study, you want to show how your product or service met a customer’s needs or solved their problem.

The basic outline for writing a case study is:

• Background and introduction of the problem
• Solution – how it was chosen and implemented
• Results – how the situation has improved

Writing the Case Study Introduction

In the background to the case study you explain the customer’s problem. It is best to show how the issue was hurting their organisation. Emphasise the pain the problem created for them, but don’t exaggerate.

I wrote a case for an automation equipment provider that helped a dairy products manufacturer reduce waste when packaging yogurt. At the beginning of the case study I wrote that they were wasting 3,000 kilos of yogurt each day because their automation equipment couldn’t accurately fill the yogurt containers.

When writing your case study, you might show how your client tried another product or service that didn’t help them. It’s all right to mention this but it’s best not to give the name of the competitor. Criticising your competitors by name in your copywriting can be counterproductive – it only draws attention to them. Also, you could end up in court if the competitor feels you haven’t covered the case accurately.

When writing your case study, don’t forget to quote staff from the company that was helped . Direct quotes from clients show that your case study is real. It also helps the readers, who may be facing similar problems, relate to the situation.

Writing Your Case Study Solution Section

When writing a case study solution section you want to show how your product or service solved the problem – you explain the rationale for choosing a particular solution, and then how the solution was implemented. This can start at the very beginning when your company first got involved. You can show how you took the time fully understand the client’s challenge. You might write about heroic efforts made to complete the project.

I wrote a case study about an IT company that develops software for the telecommunications industry. When developing and testing the software in Australia, they had to communicate with partners in Europe to test the software. This meant they had to spend many late nights working to get the job done. I mentioned these extraordinary efforts in the case study to show the dedication of the IT company’s personnel.

When writing a case study it’s good to include these human elements, especially if you’re selling a service. This will take time. You’ll need to research and interview the people who worked on the project you want to write about. A copywriter who can uncover interesting stories and information will be more effective at writing a case study than a copywriter who skirts around the edges and doesn’t cover the important details.

Writing Your Case Study Results Section

The results section of your case study is where you tell the readers what the company achieved. Try to be as specific as possible. When writing the yogurt manufacturing case study mentioned earlier, I included details on what the new automation equipment achieved. It reduced spillage by 97 per cent – from 3000 kilos per day to 90 kilos per day.

It’s not always easy to get this amount of detail when writing your case study. Some companies won’t have that type of information to give. Others are reluctant to give away their trade secrets. In these situations you might want to write a case study without specifying the company. You could write about “a major Australian manufacturer of dairy products” without giving out their name. But this won’t be as credible as specifying the company and quoting key personnel.

Other Ways to Use the Indirect Approach When Copywriting

In future copywriting blog posts, I’ll cover other ways to use the indirect approach when copywriting. These include white papers, articles and advertorials.

Welcome to our new blog.

In the coming months and years we’ll be covering a diverse range of topics on all forms of written communication for business. We’ll divide these into four main categories: copywriting, speech writing, business writing, editing and proofreading. During the next five weeks ─ through the end of January 2009 ─ we’ll be looking at copywriting.

There is a lot of confusion about copywriting. Many business people don’t have a clear understanding about copywriting and its importance. I’ve met small and medium business owners and managers who are surprised that an outside company or individual would offer to write copy for their business. Some are even surprised that such a service exists. One of their first questions is, ‘How can you write about our business if you’re not in our business?’ Others confuse the term copywriting with copyright, a legal concept for protecting intellectual property.

On the other hand, there are professional copywriters who have a very narrow definition of copywriting. They think that the only good copywriting is direct response copywriting. These are the copywriting gurus who offer to teach you copywriting in a weekend ─ for the special price of $6,000 for a three-day course. You’ll learn all the copywriting secrets and become tremendously successful in a very short time.  

In the coming months I’ll cover copywriting from the ground up. The first step will be to give you a solid definition of copywriting. Then we’ll look at the different types of copy to determine which style is best for your product, your service and your organisation.

 See you soon!