Divine Write Copywriting Blog

I was recently asked if I’d be interested in writing some articles to increase a company’s search presence. I had to turn the job down, though, because the client was only prepared to pay US $10 per 500 words. (Actually, in light of my article PR experience, they generously upped their offer to $15 per 500 words…) This wasn’t the first time I’ve been asked to work for peanuts.

It blows me away that anyone would think they’d get any real return out of this sort of investment. For your article marketing / article PR to be effective, you can’t rely only on quantity. If your articles are crap, few webmasters will want to publish them, and even fewer readers will want to read them. You also need quality. That means:

• an excellent command of spoken and written English; AND
• a sound understanding of the needs of the target audience; AND
• a sound understanding of the needs of the client’s business; AND
• consistency in style; AND
• thoroughly researched, logical arguments; AND, AND, AND…

In my humble opinion, there’s just no way you can get both quantity and quality without investing in it appropriately.

Here’s why:

In my experience, a good 500 word article takes around 3-8 hours to research, write, optimize and edit. Add another hour or so to implement changes arising out of client review, and you’ve got a total of 4-9 hours. (Many take even longer.) That works out at between $1.11 to $2.50 per hour. Based on a 40 hour week, 47 week year (and no benefits), that’s a grand total of $1,087 to $4,700 per year!

I’d wager there isn’t a good copywriter in the world who’d work for that sort of money.

You might argue that the work could be outsourced – maybe to somewhere like India? I agree that it could, but you still wouldn’t get a good writer.

A cursory scan of Indian job search site Nakuri (http://jobsearch.naukri.com) reveals that a half-way decent copywriter can earn around 4,00,000 to 8,00,000 Rupees per year. That’s around USD $9,390 to $18,780 per year + benefits. So why would they work for $4,700 (much less $1,087) per year????!

They wouldn’t.

Sure there’d probably be plenty of unproven writers willing to have a crack at it, but that’s exactly my point. How many of them would be able to research and write a quality article as outlined above. Just as importantly, how many would stick around for more than one or two. Very few.

The upshot could only be pulp. Meaningless articles churned out for keyword density and nothing more. In fact, they’re probably just re-wording existing articles. Hardly a long-term SEO strategy…

Just my gripe for the day!

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We all know the advertising truism: focus on the positives, not the negatives. You’ll sell more by talking up the benefits of buying, than you will by harping on the risks of not.

In his book, ‘Scientific Advertising’, legendary ad-man, Claude Hopkins, says:

“We are attracted by sunshine, beauty, happiness, health, success. Then point the way to them, not the way out of the opposite.

Picture envied people, not the envious.

Tell people what to do, not what to avoid.

Make your every ad breath good cheer…

Compare the results of two ads, one negative, one positive. One presenting the dark side, one the bright side. One warning, the other inviting. You will be surprised. You will find that the positive ad out pulls the other four to one…”

If you’ve ever wondered why, here’s one theory… It’s called ‘Prospect Theory’. Developed in 1979 by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, it has its roots in Behavioural Economics. Simply put, it says:

1. give someone the choice between a guaranteed small gain and a possible large gain, and they’ll probably take the small; but
2. give someone the choice between a guaranteed small loss and a possible large loss, and they’ll probably risk the large.

Here’s an example cited in a recent CIO article by Bruce Schneier:

“Take a roomful of subjects and divide them into two groups. Ask one group to choose between these two alternatives: a sure gain of $500 and 50 percent chance of gaining $1,000. Ask the other group to choose between these two alternatives: a sure loss of $500 and a 50 percent chance of losing $1,000.

…When faced with a gain, about 85 percent of people chose the sure smaller gain over the risky larger gain. But when faced with a loss, about 70 percent chose the risky larger loss over the sure smaller loss.”

Obviously there are limits to the theory (you wouldn’t choose a guaranteed $100 over a shot at $1million…), but as most of a copywriter’s work is done within these limits, this theory should work well for us.

In the positive v negative advertising debate, it’s point 2 above that’s of most interest. It suggests that if you use negative advertising, most customers will risk the impact of not buying (i.e. the possible large loss) rather than pay for your product (i.e. the guaranteed small loss).

(Point 1 above pertains, not so much to the question of WHETHER to talk up benefits, but more to the question of WHICH benefits to talk up.)

Schneier goes on to say that a possible exception to the rule occurs when you introduce true fear. People are known to do almost anything to make that feeling go away. But on this point, I’d question him. It’s true that people don’t like to feel scared. So much so, in fact, that they’ll do almost anything do avoid feeling fear, in the first place. So when you use scare tactics, people may just cover their eyes and say, “That won’t happen to me!” The infamous Australian Grim Reaper AIDS campaign is a case in point. People remember it, but it wasn’t very effective.

So if you plan to use fear, you have to be careful. It’s a fine line. Too much fear, and it may boomerang. Too little, and customers may simply see a risk worth taking in order to avoid a guaranteed smaller loss (the purchase price).

In the end, the safest bet is – surprisingly enough – to take the safe approach. Listen to Hopkins, and focus on positives. Using computer security (the subject matter discussed in the CIO article) by way of example: if your audience already accepts the need for security, focus on the quality of your particular offering (it’s speed, ease of use, comprehensiveness, etc.); but if they’re not so sure they need security, focus on the benefits of security in general (peace of mind, the comfortable feeling that you’re doing what the experts recommend, faster computing, greater uptime, etc.).

Happy writing!

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Just read some very interesting statistics presented by one of my favourite writers, Gerry McGovern. (The statistcis weren’t from his research; he was just discussing them.)

According to a February 2008 study published by the Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Research, “Sixty-two percent of marketers believe traditional television advertising has become less effective in the past two years… [and] Eighty-seven percent of respondents said they intended to spend more ad dollars on the Internet in 2008.”

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

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‘Link baiting’ may just be a fancy name for ‘good web content’, but it’s a handy reminder that content is critical to a high search engine ranking. Simply put, it’s about making your site content so good that people can’t help but link to it. They feel they’d be doing their own visitors a disservice by not linking.

Of course, I’m not talking just copy here; I’m talking about ALL of the content on your site. Copy, videos, downloads, games, forums, survey results, articles… Anything that makes your site helpful and informative. (Think of it as reverse viral marketing.)

By way of example, take the Partner4Real online dating site. They originally engaged an SEO company to get them a high ranking for a number of terms, including “online dating”, “dating”, “personals”, “singles” and “free dating”. While this went ok, they’re now doing better by themselves, simply by focussing on link baiting. They have very helpful web content and a weekly video from a doctor of herbal medicine. For “online dating” they rank no.2 in the world when you search from Australia. Not bad considering the site’s only very new…

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I’m proud to announce that Divine Write is partnering with GetUp (Australia’s leading political activism website) in its ‘Oz in 30 Seconds’ competition.

The ‘Oz in 30 Seconds’ competition

GetUp is inviting every-day Australians to produce an ad that shows their vision of Australia. The Top 10 ads – as judged by the Australian public – will go before a celebrity judging panel that includes ABC-TV movie reviewer Margaret Pomeranz, and the advertising industry’s “Director of the Year” Bruce Hunt, who was second-unit director of The Matrix.

The winning ad will air on national prime time television during the lead up to the federal election.

Critique some ad scripts

To help out, Divine Write is inviting entrants to have their ad script critiqued by professional copywriters in the Divine Write Critique my Copy forum, prior to entry in the competition.

So if you’re a professional copywriter in Australia, and you’re interested in helping regular Australians ‘reclaim the airwaves’ and Australia’s political future, please visit the Critique my Copy forum and offer constructive criticism on the scripts that will be posted there in the coming days and weeks. You might even want to add it to your Favourites and come back regularly.

Maybe enter the competition?

I’d also encourage you to take a shot at the competition yourself. It’s incredibly easy to put together a 30 second ad, and the Ozin30 forums offers the chance team up with a producer and create something that will resonate with all Australians. Something that makes a statement and maybe even makes a difference…

Let’s see what we can do.

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Something light today…

I didn’t write the below (wish I did), and I don’t know who did, but from a copywriter’s perspective, the outcome certainly is a great interpretation of a brief!

A college class was told to write a short story in as few words as possible. They were told that the story must contain three things:
1) Religion
2) Sexuality
3) Mystery

Below is the only A+ short story in the class.

“Good God, I’m pregnant; I wonder who did it.”

Love it!

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Just a quick post this time… I quite often find myself recommending tools or specific applications of tools for copywriting and SEO copywriting. So I thought I’d cut out the middle-man and simply publish my list and a few comments on each tool.

So here’s my list of copywriting tools and SEO copywriting tools. If you have any extras or any comments, please feel free to reply to the thread.

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While this isn’t, strictly speaking, the domain of the copywriter, it is a question I get asked quite often. In fact, this question came up recently in one of our forums (see Please critique my ‘Contact’ page.

As you might expect, my answer to this question is based on my understanding of usability, not copywriting. My reading tells me that you should always have your contact details easily accessible (on as many pages as possible). My own experience reinforces this.

If you’re interested, here’s the list of things I look for before buying online from a site I haven’t bought from before:

1. the Google PR of their site
2. whether or not their street address and phone number were available on the site - and to a lesser extent, a legit sounding email address
3. whether someone answered the phone when I called
4. whether they sounded legit when I spoke to them
5. the professionalism of their site

But this raises the sticky question of what to do about spam. The moment you publish your email address on the internet (in a regular something@somethingelse.com format, the world’s legions of spam bots will pick it up and inundate you with spam (otherwise humorously known as ‘High Volume Email Deployment’, but that’s a ‘whole nother story’!)

I know from personal experience that the above is true. I receive 400-500 spam emails every day!!! And I’m one of the lucky ones…

But even so, I still think you should include your email address on your Contact page (and on every other page). My reasons:

1. many of the published instances of my email address are actually in the bylines of my articles - my articles are everywhere on the Web and at the end of most of them, my email address appears. So much/most of the spam I receive is probably due to those articles.
2. spam is manageable - read on to find out how I do it…

Overcoming the SPAM problem - A review of a spam filter

I simply use a Web host who provides a good spam filter. Check out http://www.aussiehq.com.au. They are - without doubt - the best web hosting company I’ve ever dealt with. (I’ve hosted with Web Central before and I’ve spoken to, and researched, dozens more. AussieHQ are far and away the best in my opinion.) They use a spam filter that’s part of their webmaster config software, PLESK. So if you find a web host that uses PLESK and has an email filter, they’re probably using the same one.

AussieHQ’s spam filter appends a string like “*****SPAM” to all suspect emails (you can actually set the string). You can then set up a rule in Outlook to send these emails to a dedicated SPAM folder, then check this folder a few times each day to make sure it’s not accidentally filtering out legit emails. (Alternatively, you can set the spam filter to simply delete the emails, but you have to be very confident of its accuracy before you do that.)

Additionally, you can set the filter’s sensitivity. i.e. An email must have X number of suspect elements before it is considered spam. I worked my way down from 7 and settled on 2. I find this has the best balance of catching ability and accuracy.

I also measured how many legit emails it caught on each of its levels. I tested each for 2 days. Here’s the results:

• I get around 400 spam emails per day (sometimes 500-600)
• In the 10 days I was closely monitoring, I received around 4000 spam emails
• In that time, I had just 2 false positives (i.e. legit emails flagged as spam) and these were on Level 1 - the most aggressive spam detection
• I didn’t test ‘7 Hits required for spam’
• Set at ‘6 Hits required for spam’, the filter let through only around 20 spam emails per day (a capture rate of approx 95%)
• Set at ‘5 Hits required for spam’, the filter let through only around 7 spam emails per day (a capture rate of approx 98%)
• Set at ‘4 Hits required for spam’, the filter let through only around 9 spam emails per day (a capture rate of approx 98%)
• Set at ‘3 Hits required for spam’, the filter let through only around 4 spam emails per day (a capture rate of approx 99%)
• Set at ‘2 Hits required for spam’, the filter let through only around 5 spam emails per day (a capture rate of approx 99%)
• Set at ‘1 Hits required for spam’, the filter let through only around 1-2 spam emails per day (a capture rate of approx 99.6%)
• Oh, and these results were WITHOUT a white list. You can maintain a list of safe email addresses. The system just lets through any emails from these addresses.

Note that I only tested for two days per level, so my results may be a little too approximate in some cases.

For what it’s worth, I think AussieHQ’s product eclipses the product offered by WebCentral and that of Norton Internet Security 2006.

Hope this helps someone!

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An interesting topic came up in the Divine Write Copywriting Forums today. If copywriting is an art, how do you make it work in a structured business environment? Specifically, how can you force art?

Every copywriter has asked themself this question, at one time or another. Unfortunately, there’s no simple answer. But there are a few things you can do to reconcile art & business ROI. Here’s the relevant part of my response in the forum…

… copywriting is an art. Like any other art, it requires you to be ‘in the zone’. If you need to let your mind wander to be in the zone, then that’s just how it is.

However, having said that, every business needs return on investment. If you feel like you’re taking too long (or that your boss may fire you), perhaps you just need a little more structure for yourself. The way I do this is to set myself a series of questions to which I must know the answers BEFORE I start writing. Ask yourself / your boss / the subject matter expert the following.

• What is this copy about?
• What is the objective of the copy?
• What is the overriding call to action (e.g. Call our hotline)?
• Who is your typical reader (e.g male, 30-45, professional, affluent, physically active)?
• What problem / need / situation has caused the reader to read this copy?
• How would your reader achieve their objectives without your offering?
• What are your overriding / strongest or most unique selling points?
• What makes your delivery of this offering better than that of your competitors?

Then, when it comes time to actually write the copy, try applying a standard logic each time. I find that almost all copy can follow this structure (more or less):

1. Identify reader’s need / problem (to illustrate domain awareness and to engage the reader - e.g. “If IT is core to your business operation, you can’t afford downtime. Unplanned downtime can result in significant loss of profit, possibly even business failure.”)
2. Discuss generic solution (e.g. “The most effective way to avoid unplanned IT downtime is to ensure you have a comprehensive disaster recovery plan in place. Disaster recovery…”)
3. Discuss your specific delivery of this solution (e.g. “Widgets Disaster Recovery Services is Australia’s leading provider of disaster recovery and business continuity solutions. We have data centres all around the country, and blah blah blah…”
4. Summarise with a brief statement which subtly but explicitly links your delivery of the solution with the resolution of the reader’s problem or resolution of their need (e.g. “Widgets Disaster Recovery Services has the experience and expertise to help ensure that your business doesn’t lose business due to unplanned IT downtime.”)

Obviously, you need to overlook the simplistic (i.e. poor) copy in these examples.

Oh, and in practice (depending on the length of the copy), sections 2 & 3 often overlap (or are combined).

Hope this helps!

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Yesterday I was asked for advice by an aspiring copywriter. This happens all the time, but on this particular occasion, I think I actually helped a little! So I thought I’d post the original question and my response in the hopes that it might help someone else…

The question:

I am looking at returning to study, specifically with the aim of gaining work as a Copywriter within the advertising industry. Which of the courses available in Melbourne would you recommend as being the most recognised and/or rewarding? The Creative Director at the agency I was freelancing for recommended ‘Award School”. Do you have any thoughts or feelings on that option?

My response:

Thanks for your email. To be honest, I don’t know much about copywriting courses. I’ve never done one and I don’t pay much attention to the educational background of my freelancers. What I’m interested in is proven copywriting ability. I think this is the case for most people in my position (i.e. writers who outsource a bit of work) take this sort of approach. I suspect qualifications help if you’re trying to get work from non-writers, ‘cos they can’t always tell how good you are just by looking at your work.

Having said all of that I’ve heard of Award School, so at least that says that it’s fairly well known. (If I’ve heard of it, it must be!!!). You might also consider the copywriting course offered by Magneto. I know the guy who runs it. He’s a good writer and a decent guy.

And finally, you might consider:

• reading some of the articles I’ve written for aspiring copywriters.
• joining the Divine Write Copywriting forums. There’s a forum on copywriting as a career, which includes a general advice forum and a ‘post your full time job’ forum - http://www.divinewrite.com/forum/index.php?c=4&sid=83fc10edd00007c6d98cc1287770c419.

Hope this helps.

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