You can’t Google the
truth
Newspapers
and websites are pretty useless for information. Most editorial pieces either
miss crucial facts or are pre-manufactured. Opinion pieces are also mostly
claptrap*. But as a copywriter and marketer, I find newspapers and the internet
useful. How?
A
copywriter must be able to write about almost everything, so finding product
and market knowledge is important. But although you’ll rarely find useful
information in newspapers or through Google, they can be used to provoke and initiate
discovery, to learn the truth about a subject.
How to get an expert to talk
An
analogy would be to wave a red rag at a bull to provoke a reaction. In
marketing, the bull would be a recognised expert in the field you are writing
in. And you would be trying to get the real story behind the news.
The
truth, if used carefully, is highly valuable when selling a product. Truth
resonates and connects. But getting to the truth behind news stories and
popular opinion is difficult. People are naturally reticent about the real
facts and articles are often agenda-driven or merely telling us what we want to
hear.
But a
copywriter must discover the inside story because that is what will motivate
people to read his copy.
Provoking discovery: using news as
a red rag
You can
use an opinion piece or news as a ‘red rag’: quote the article to an expert and
he will swiftly put you right and give you a more accurate account. Clever,
huh?
You then
use that candid account to motivate your readers to buy.
Here’s
how it works in practice. When writing copy I first look at current news and
opinion pieces. Let’s take the property market as an example. We know through the
news that property values in Spain have fallen:
“The residential
property market in Spain has not yet reached bottom and could drop another 27% in 2010,
according to a new report. Overall property transactions in 2009 dropped by
around 41% compared with 2008, the report by Spanish property consultants and
analysts Aguirre Newman, also shows.”
A
headline along those lines may be news, but it won’t sell a thing:
‘Spanish property transactions to drop by 27%’
That is
pretty uninteresting. We think we already know about falling property prices,
so the headline is no surprise. Readership will be low and your copy is
unlikely to attract potential property investors.
Looking behind what we think we know
Is there
a real story behind what we think we already know? If so, what is it and how to
uncover it? Will the real story surprise and move the prospect into reading a
promotion?
This is
how I use that ‘useless’ editorial piece: I repeat it to some property owners
and I am met with derisive snorts, head shaking and big smiles. Their houses overseas
have increased in value by 50 per cent, because of their location and
favourable movements in currency exchange – the Euro has risen 40 per cent
against Sterling in just a couple of years.
The same
is true of property in the USA.
Those owners
have made money because they used expert advice and didn’t follow the hype and
rush to buy in popular areas at inflated ‘British prices’. So they are also
good prospects for the kind of information we will be selling through the
property website.
What
response do you think I would get to a promotion that put that knowledge to
work in the first paragraph:
“How my Spanish and USA properties
just increased in value by 50%”
What you need to know about your
customer
The most
important sources of information for marketers, copywriters and salespeople
are: (1) the customer and (2) the prospect. By asking those two groups the
right questions, the copywriter can develop the approach most likely to attract
more customers. In summary, a copywriter must know:
- His
customers
- His
prospects
- The
product
- The
media options
- How
his promotion should look
That list
is in the right order: ‘Know your
customer and how your product can help him’ summarises the correct
approach. Logically therefore:
- The
product must adapt to the market
- The
company must follow the marketer
- Marketing
decides the company’s direction
- The
copywriter is the pathfinder for marketing
So the
copywriter leads. Once the copywriter knows the facts he can create his
promotions to test certain premises. Next he must look at what to offer a
prospect to close the deal – the price, discount, free gift, risk-free trial
and other incentives. Closing the deal, as any salesperson will tell you, is
the toughest part of the sale. But it’s made easier if the marketer has laid
the ground beforehand.
*P.S. If you need
proof of the poor standards in journalism, read a news report on something you
know about: you’ll find factual errors and important omissions. That being the
case, do you think the other reports in the paper are more accurate? Hardly
likely…
The same is true of
articles on the internet. When people ask if I use the internet to research my
copy, I try to be noncommittal: “It’s very useful”. But it’s only useful to
research the questions I need to ask.
That extra research
is the reason, by the way, that copywriters are paid so much more than
journalists. The truth is more valuable.
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