I know my blog’s output has been poor over the last few months. So to try and make amends, I’ve got a double whammy of posts for you: UK’s youth the most engaged with direct mail With all the fuss over how social media and the internet is giving young people the attention spans of […]
Referral Marketing Tips for Copywriters
Being the modest bunch that we are, copywriters often hate asking for referrals. Normally we’re only brave enough to ask for testimonials because we can do it from the safety of a computer screen. We’d all love to think that when we put our heart and soul into our writing that it will, inevitably, lead […]
Want to to increase your email’s click throughs? Make it easy to share
With 55 million updates on Twitter every day and several million more on Facebook, it’s no wonder marketers are excited about social media. Whilst making a message that goes ‘viral’ is more pot luck than a defined strategy, you can certainly improve your message’s chances of being shared by including links to social media sites. You’d have thought […]
What’s small and often ignored but can dramatically reduce errors and increase response rates?
They’re often no bigger than a small sentence, a phrase or even a single word. But they have the power to stop forms being abandoned and visitors leaving; they can even improve what people think about your brand. What am I talking about? Why, microcopy of course. It might be the sales letter or landing […]
UK Copywriter Takes On the US Military Over the Use of Bullets
Ever witnessed ‘death by PowerPoint’? This is the phrase coined by the US military for the mind numbingly dull 30+ slide briefings they have to sit through. But it’s not just the length of PowerPoint presentations that’s under attack. According to the NY Times (via Seth’s blog), there’s growing discontent amongst senior brass at how […]
Recent articles on the bda blog
Dear Reader, As you know, I only post when I think I have something worth saying (rather than to feed Google’s spiders) and that’s not going to change. I’m not going to have time to write a proper post for you again this week (and probably not next week either). So instead you might be […]
Struggling to write an opener for your sales letter? Try one of these…
Do you ever find yourself staring at a blank screen, with your head in your hands, desperately trying to think up the perfect line to open your sales letter with? The cursor hasn’t moved for the last 10 minutes and continues to blink at you, taunting your lack of creativity. Sound familiar? Writing an opener […]
How to improve your copywriting’s conversion rate by writing for individuals, rather than groups
What do you think is the the most important element of your copywriting? The headline? The benefits? Or the product itself? Well, this was the topic of Eric Graham’s (aka The Conversion Doctor) recent video – ‘My #1 Conversion Boosting Secret Revealed’ – and I don’t think I’ll be sending any shockwaves by revealing that it’s […]
Does Your Website’s Copywriting Make These Mistakes?
As you know, there’s an abundance of horribly written corporate websites out there – with too much back slapping self praise and not enough focus on the customer. For us copywriters, this presents an opportunity: if you can point out to a company why their website’s copy is ineffective, they might ask you to give it a makeover. Many companies complain about how poor their websites are at […]
What the iPad and Homeopathy Can Teach You About Using Hype in Your Copywriting
You often hear about how we’re imminently entering a new era of transparency and authenticity in marketing. Social networking is giving people the power to sidestep and slice through cynical marketing claims; you can’t just drench people in enough messages and hope something will stick. Based on these two examples, the new era of transparency might not be too far […]