Empathy is the key when you are writing copy

Sep 30, 2008 Comments

In this Copyblogger post James has written how important it is to empathize with your readers. I think this is the most important aspect of your entire copywriting activity.  Empathizing with your readers means knowing exactly what they are feeling and what they are looking for. If you are busy blowing your own horn you are never going to understand what your readers really want from you.

Although he has pondered over many other points but this is the most important point because everybody wants to hear or read about himself or herself.  If I visit a website or a blog I’m not doing the website owner or the blog a favor; I go there because I want to go there, I need to derive something from there, and if I find something totally contrary and totally unwanted I leave immediately to seek the thing that I want from another source.

That is why whenever I am interacting with a client before starting work on his or her copy I make it clear that we have to talk to the reader in an interactive manner.  We have to understand why the reader is there in the first place. And then immediately attend to his or her requirement or necessity.

Should business pages be published using WordPress?

Sep 29, 2008 Comments

Of late I’ve been using WordPress to publish various non-blog pages on my website. Maintenance becomes easier and I don’t have to connect the FTP whenever I want to add new pages (and I plan to add them quite fast).  It becomes very easy; just use a blog editing tool like the windows live writer to publish the pages and you can even search engine optimize them by using a WordPress SEO plug-in.

But the problem is that now all these pages depend on the MySQL server hosted by the hosting company.  There are generally two types of server problems when the website is down: either the main server, where all the files reside, is down, or the MySQL server is down.  This means whenever the MySQL server is down the websites that have got nothing to do with the database are not affected and they keep on running.  But the websites that depend on the database become inaccessible.  This means all the pages that are published using WordPress become inaccessible to humans as well search engine crawlers whenever the MySQL server is down; the MySQL server – so I have noticed – is down many times where I am hosting my websites.  Right now, when I am typing this, the server is down and all my blogs are down too. Luckily, my main business website is still running (this post will appear only when the MySQL is working again).

Should I switch back to using the normal PHP pages, ignore this once in a while problem, or change my host?  I like my host, though. But I would quickly like to add that I’ve got nothing to say against WordPress or any other content publishing solutions people use to publish and manage their business websites.  Anyway, I’m still thinking.

Balancing life and work as a freelance copywriter

Sep 26, 2008 Comments

Just read a nice blog post on how to manage and balance your personal and professional lives. When you are working from home it is very difficult to draw a line between working and not working and sometimes I feel I am always working even during the weekends. I remember a few months ago I had planned a 15-day holiday and accordingly I had prepared a schedule to complete a client’s assignment.  He not only delayed the assignment he also kept calling me and sending me e-mails and I ended up working all my holidays and this really created a crisis in my family.

I think having clients from all over the world does take its toll because they all have their own working schedules and sometimes I have to adjust my work timings accordingly. Still, from inside I know you can draw a line if you really want to.  What can be the cost?  Maybe you will lose a few assignments but it’s not worth it if you are losing out on quality family time and even your health.

I am gradually deciding on what days I want to work and on what days I don’t want to work.  That’s why now I have specifically mentioned on my website (look at the top-right side) what days I am working. I don’t even take the weekends off in the conventional sense because it doesn’t suit me personally.  For example, on Mondays I have my music class and I cannot simply miss it.  Since my teacher (he is around 70-year-old) uses public transport to come to my place (yes, even at that age he is quite healthy and doesn’t find public transport daunting) I am never sure when he is going to reach and this creates lots of disturbance. Besides, almost all my music classes are extremely exhausting by the time we are through, at least for me.  This practically used to waste my Mondays completely, work-wise. Then my wife suggested that I should have my weekend on Sundays and Mondays instead of Saturdays and Sundays.  I am still getting used to not working on a Monday or at least not worrying about work.

No longer I spend around 12 to 15 hours working on my laptop; the moment I have worked for 8 hours I call it a day and these 8 hours, beside my writing assignments, also include blogging and supervising other writers.

Striking a balance is really essential if you really want to make your freelance business meaningful.  You leave your regular job and start working on your own because you want to enjoy life and don’t want to spend it in the daily grind of commuting to your office and then remaining in that unfriendly building all day.  You want to be with your family, you want to see your kids running around you when you are working and you want to be with your spouse when he or she needs someone to be with.  There is no purpose in getting on the verge of achieving all this but not getting it just because you cannot organize the way you handle your work.

Setting my business goals regarding online copywriting

Sep 25, 2008 Comments

Of late I have been quickly getting rid of all the things that delay my working or make me work slow.  For instance I have changed lots of software tools recently, for example I have changed my word processor and I have also changed my spreadsheet application.  Oh yes, I use spreadsheets to keep track of my income and also the current projects I am handling.  Most of the bulkier Microsoft Office applications are out except for the windows live writer that I use to post blog posts. The moment I downloaded and installed Google Chrome it just took me a few minutes to decide that this was going to be my primary browser due to its minimalistic presentation.

I think undue distractions are one of the biggest hurdles in the way of achieving your business and personal goals so these days I have become extremely intolerant towards big and small distractions (but of course my daughter can distract me whenever she feels like).

Other than that I also changed my room because the previous room was quite noisy and full of activity (I was bang in front of the entrance so everybody was greeted by my cheerful or silly looking smile).  I shifted my working paraphernalia (just a plastic chair, a wooden table and my humble HP laptop) to my music room because it is the most isolated and peaceful place in the house.  I practice singing in the music room every morning before doing anything else.

This blog post at Zen Habits rightly says that too many goals are a sure shot way of achieving none.  There is no use going for bigger goals if the groundwork is not done.  The groundwork constitutes of smaller goals.  If I want to increase my business first of all I have to figure out what are the things that stop me from giving my best. Recognizing hurdles and obstructive habits is a smaller goal and is easily achievable.  Another goal could be taking quick decisions especially when those decisions are for the better.

You should also take smaller steps consistently without losing track of them.  Consistency is also something that I have been trying to achieve for a few months.  Consistency in performance, consistency in health related matters (because health eventually affects your performance and hence, business), and consistently in skills development.

There is an arena I have been ignoring so far: networking.  For a freelancer, the ability to network is of the same importance as the ability to successfully complete projects. Very few people know me and I too know very few people.  I am not implying that one should only network for the purpose of expanding business but greater business opportunities are just byproducts of a greater social circle.

Another small goal could be developing the habit of setting smaller goals and then achieving them.  I think this is the biggest challenge on the way of being successful no matter what you do.

Should I be charging by hour, by word or by page, for copywriting?

Sep 25, 2008 Comments

As the number of quarries increases many clients ask me how I charge.  Till now I have been charging by pages and those pages contain particular number of words.  Beyond that word limit I charge extra for every extra bracket of hundred words.  Recently I charged by hour  and grossly miscalculated the number of hours required to accomplish the task.  I told my client that I could finish the document in five hours whereas it took me more than 15 hours.  That sucked big-time.

I charge differently for different content requirements but I mostly charge per page (assuming a page contains between 300 and 400 words).  Many people on various freelancing blogs suggest that one should charge by hours because this way you can charge a fixed rate no matter what the client wants you to do.  For me it doesn’t work because I want to provide a flexible quote to my clients.  Besides sometimes I also outsource my work and I am never sure how much time the writer is going to take.  It is better to pay him or her a fixed amount for a document of a particular size.

Anyway I am still in the process of deciding how I should charge but for the time being I am charging by page.  I have been charging like this for more than 3 years now.  Just because I have been charging this way for such a long time doesn’t necessarily make it right but my clients seem to prefer this. The method of payment should be useful both for my clients and myself.  What I mean is I would like to charge in a manner that my clients don’t have to overpay me and I don’t end up undercharging.

Do you need tools for online copywriting?

Sep 24, 2008 Comments

What sort of tools would you need as an online copywriter?  This post says that you need and HTML editor and a swipe file. Although I do agree with the swipe file thing but why on earth would you need and HTML editor for your online copywriting work?  HTML editors are needed for designing and developing websites and not for writing copy.  For writing online copy you need a decent word processor or at least a text editor. Many writers of late have started using simple text editors like DarkRoom (I find it a bit claustrophobic) and Text Pad because there are no distractions while you’re typing.

I prefer my word processor.  As I recently wrote I have just started using Atlantis as my primary word processor because it is very light and it has all the features I require to write.

Other than a writing software I don’t thing you need anything else.  Fine, there are many tools that can improve your efficiency such as EverNote and FreeMind but they are organizational tools and not writing tools. Just wondering.

Creating an engaging sales letter

Sep 24, 2008 Comments

Writing sales letters is a big part of being a copywriter.  You are always writing stuff to help your clients sell products and services.  Some sales letter are long and some are short; it all depends on what your client wants to say or rather what you want to say on behalf of your client.  Your sales letter, in order to be a successful sales letter, needs to accomplish the following:

• Once people start reading your sales letter they should read it completely
• Your sales letter should prompt the readers to take the action desired by your client or by you

Yes, just two things but they are the most important things/actions your sales letter needs to perform. How do you achieve this.  You can try the following:

Grab the attention

The Internet is full of distractions; and people on the Internet are not particularly the patient types.  This is not a fault, it’s just that there is so much choice on the Internet, easily available choice, that a person doesn’t even think twice before heading to another website. What do you do to avoid it? You grab the attention from the very first line.  How do you do that?  There are many ways you can grab the attention immediately:

• Offer something irresistible in the beginning itself using a headline
• Ask a question that elicits some kind of a natural response
• Use a graphic or a video that grabs attention (this goes beyond the realm of copywriting, of course)
• Shock the reader (the shock must be relevant to the topic of your sales letter)
• Promise something exceptional
• Be witty

Here the main purpose is to encourage your readers to read further.  A good way of writing is to prompt the readers to read further after every sentence.  After every sentence the readers should want to read the next sentence and this should go on and on. It is often said that the purpose of every sentence is to prepare the ground for the next sentence.

Use action words

This may sound clichéd (because you find this suggestion on practically every article on copywriting), but it is the best way of encouraging people to indulge in an action of your desire.  If you want them to subscribe to your newsletter then ask them to do so.  If you want them to purchase your e-book or subscribe to your service, ask them to do so.  It doesn’t mean that after every second word you prompt them.  Use the action words where you feel that they would be emotionally ready to perform that action.

For instance you have just explained a great benefit of your product or service.  In fact the benefit is so overwhelming that if a person can make use of it, it can really turn things around.  Take my copywriting services.  After explaining in a paragraph how exceptionally I can help you improve your bottom line (explained logically, not just claims) I can ask you to contact me.  Here my main purposes to encourage you to establish a communication channel.  In fact I have done this on my homepage — I prompt the reader to contact me after every one or two paragraphs.

Repeat some of your most powerful expressions

Repetition doesn’t make a lie truth, but if there is something that can really make an impact you should repeat it often on your page but just make sure that you don’t put people off.  Don’t blow your horn if that’s what you plan to do in the repetition process.  You can repeat action words at appropriate places.

Show empathy and converse with your readers

Talk to people, not at them. You cannot simply command people to buy from you.  You need to empathize with them; they have a requirement and you politely inform them that you can meet the requirement and even exceed their expectations. For that you have to understand what their problem is, what nags them, what troubles them. If a person doesn’t get good search engine rankings he or she doesn’t want to see his or her link among the first 10 results just for an ego boost (ego boost is fine for the initial couple of times), he or she wants some good traffic so that he or she can increase his or her business so that he or  she can make more money.  So if a person wants higher search engine rankings than that person is actually looking to increase his or her business prospects.  You have to cater to that desire in actuality.

You need to sound concerned and encouraging at the same time.  If all you can do is paint a depressing picture of the current scenario and then offer your search engine optimization services then it is not going to make much impact. Instead, sound encouraging.  Explain to your reader how things can be turned for the better and how he or she can use your services to increase his or her business.

Create a sense of urgency

I never believe in creating a false sense of urgency, but it really works sometimes.  Make an offer that holds only for a particular period of time.  For instance you can offer a 50% discount to the first hundred buyers of your e-book and you can display the number of remaining people (descending fast) who can avail this discount. Or if you are offering a treatment then you can list a few, true, dangers of not treating the ailment on time.

Highlight the main points

You can do this by using headlines on headings or whatever you may call them.  These are one of those bold, enlarged portions that you can quickly go through without having to read the fine print.  Headlines make it easier for the reader to quickly skim through your text and decide whether he or she wants to read further or not.  Highlighting also highlights your main points so there is no chance of missing them.  Don’t highlight every second paragraph.  Use highlighting only when it is absolutely necessary otherwise it becomes noisy and people leave your website, totally irritated.

I find writing sales letters far more challenging than writing the regular articles and blog posts because most of this work involves direct response and your client immediately gets to know how well or badly you have done your job.  This also means that you can charge more for writing sales letters compared to the regular stuff.

Does it require lots of training, writing sales letters? I don’t think so.  You need some common sense, you need conviction, you need to be able to articulate well of course, and you should be able to empathize with your readers.  If you can do that you can surely write a productive, engaging sales letter.

A very light word processor

Sep 24, 2008 Comments

Checking this new “light” word processor called Atlantis.  I just downloaded it.  Although for years I have been working in M.S. Word it is needlessly quite a bulky software and takes ages to load on my laptop.  This particularly becomes a nuisance when I have to open attachments from my clients, multiple times in an hour sometimes, and when I have to quickly write a few paragraphs (okay, I must admit I cannot write without a word processor). I needed a word processor that I could keep running all the time without it hogging the memory and slowing down other applications. So when I did a search on “very light word processors” I found Atlantis, and right now I’m typing in it.  It seems quite good; loaded immediately and it has all the functions that I need on a daily basis.  It has been designed on the concept of 10/90, that means, 90% of word processing work can be achieved by just 10% of the features presented by most of the off-the-shelf word processing packages and a totally agree.

Undoubtedly M.S. Word is a lot cooler than Atlantis, with very neat looks and an array of features (that I have never used ever since I started using it since the days of Windows 3.11).  Nonetheless, for a few days I am definitely going to give this new word processor a try. If you want it, you can download it here. It’s free (oh! not free, costs $35, but the trial lasts for a month).

When I get stuck while writing

Sep 23, 2008 Comments

Writing is not a faucet from where words start pouring out the moment you turn the contrivance on. It’s like a feral mountain stream, with its own bent of mind. It twists and twirls, it flows with great gushes, and sometimes, sadly, it vanishes. As a professional writer I simply cannot afford to let this stream vanish. No matter what it has to flow.  I cannot depend on the streaks of creativity when the client has paid an advance and is waiting for his or her document.

Jonathan at Copyblogger metaphorically asks, are you a spineless blogger? Quite an interesting thought and I would like to implement this metaphor to regular professional copywriting too. He says in order to write prolifically you need to have a creative spine, for, spine is the most important part of our body — it practically supports our body and without a spine there is nothing much we can do.  The same applies to writing too; without "spine"  writing is not possible especially when you’re feeling "the block". Developing a spine is not as hard as it may seem if you look at it casually.  It is about organizing your thoughts in a logical manner and then expressing them.

But what if you have lots of things to say but there are no words coming forward?  A good trick that I follow is randomly start writing words. It doesn’t have to make any sense. Just write with great speed whatever comes to your mind.  You don’t even have to complete your sentences. Eventually you see a pattern emerging.  Sometimes you just have to add a few words here and a few words there and you are done.  You may say, well easier said than done, and I totally agree.

Jonathan talks about writing in the list format — you simply start creating a bulleted list of your thoughts.  If you’re creating a copy for a corporate website this would involve creating a list of benefits offered by the product or the service being promoted by the company. You may also create a list of steps to be taken in order to acquire the product or subscribe to the service.

What if you had to explain, compellingly, the features of product you are not much aware of?  Ask questions to the client because he or she is the best person to give you the needed feedback.  You can create a list of questions and ask the client to provide the answers.  Then simply rewrite the answers in your own copywriter sort of way.  And what if the client doesn’t give you any information?  Then plagiarize from other websites. No, not in the criminal manner; just do some research and see what you can find and then present a rehashed version to the client.  This time the client responds with what all he or she does not want. Surely, this requires more work. let your client no about the extra effort you had to put in and then charge accordingly.

Getting stuck while writing I think is just a state of mind.  When you know that you have to write then you write. It is a matter of life and death to be frank.  If you don’t write you don’t earn money and if you don’t earn money you cannot pay the bills and if it cannot pay the bills… well, you get my point.

The first post here on business writing and copywriting blog

Sep 21, 2008 Comments

I was going through this blog post at Copyblogger, written by Writer Dad and I was really touched by the free flow of emotions. I miss that side of mine, the side that could be adventurous with the words. Words have always been my playground. They define me, I mean, writing defines me.

Day before yesterday my wife asked what would have I done had there been no Internet? 100% of my earnings come from the Internet. I would have been a writer, I replied. But aren’t you already writing? she asked. For a while I couldn’t find an answer. One day you’ll be working on your novel, not writing sales pitches and product descriptions, she had said a few days ago. What’s wrong in that? For a while she couldn’t answer. I reminded her of that instance. We both decided that it was time to take my business, my writing business, to the next level.

This new design is the initiation of that next phase; this blog section too. About the design, I make all the designs by myself, and for more than three months I had been trying to come up with a decent layout, and for three months I had been working on a layout. I wasn’t happy with whatever was coming up. Then today when I was writing a small article for this website I wondered whether I should publish it as a page or as a blog post. I wanted to publish it is a blog post but then there was no blog under this website and the article wouldn’t have looked appropriate on the content blog. I decided that I should have a blog on this website too. Before setting up the blog I wanted to complete the new layout.

So this afternoon I started working on a new layout from scratch and finished the entire design in 10 odd hours. The design is complete and implemented, and so is this blog. I’m not sure what I’m going to write on this blog but it will most probably contain my writing thoughts, my experiences while working as an online copywriter, the new things that I’m learning, and whatever I stumble upon while surfing the Internet, on other blogs and websites.

Do let me know how you like the new design (even if you haven’t seen the previous design just let me know how the current design looks). Since there are practically no posts on this blog I have no idea how to organize the links for it. I will work on them once I have written a few more posts.

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