HELP with copy writing needed !!!

[JuteBag]

Hi All,

I have been trying to write a short summary about my company and would like some feedback/criticism with anyone who has experience in how best to write this. I would treate all criticism as constructive and would really appreciate if anyone could give me pointers on how to improve my draft. I have to provide this 'About my company' to some event organisers where we are sponsoring the event and they would like to put something about our company on their website and marketing material. Any help would be very very very appreciated as it has taken me a long time to write this. I understand that if i had hired a proffessional copy-writer, it would have been much better but with a limited budget at presently, I can't afford one now. Hopefully, I can use them in the future as it could be done much better and much faster..... My draft is as follows:

About my company:

JuteBag.co.uk is a leading UK supplier of eco-friendly bags. We are a fast growing and forward-thinking company with strong ethical and environmental concerns at the heart of all our products and operations.

We recognised the importance that packaging has on any product and the negative impact packaging can have on our environment. With this in mind, JuteBag.co.uk was born to provide cost-effective eco-friendly bags to businesses of all types. We offer bags that are an environmentally responsible alternative to conventional bags .Our customers include Farm Shops, Independent Grocers, Farmers Markets, Delis, Fine Food manufacturers and importers, Organic growers and producers, Local Government Councils, Educational bodies like Universities, Wineries, Distilleries, Event/Exhibition organisers and many more types of businesses who tend to use our eco-friendly bags for their marketing campaigns.

We strive to provide all our customers with an excellent service to ensure that we add real value for them. Our aim is to provide high quality bags together with a reliable and an excellent service at a great price. This sets us apart from our competitors.

We manufacture all our bags in dedicated factories in India which allows us to ensure that strict ethical conditions are observed. We carry out strict quality-control checks on all our bags to ensure that they comply with the highest standards of quality. We love all our jute bags and use only the best quality fabrics and dyes on our bags.

Our in-house designing team based in London is ideally placed to work closely with businesses across UK to provide them with an unrivalled service. All our bags can be completely customised to meet each specific requirement. We ensure that not only do our customers like the bags but also ultimately our customers’ customers like them. In many instances, our eco-friendly bags have been used as eco-friendly promotional bags providing a high-impact marketing solution for our customers.

We are constantly evolving to meet our customers’ varying requirements. We work closely with all our customers to meet their needs and constantly exceed their expectations.


Thanks for reading and I will appreciate all your comments !!

Kind regards,

[PlainText]

Hi Amit

It's not too bad but in a few places it reads very stiltedly - it looks like you've tried to pack it with keywords for a website and it no longer flows naturally. It's too repetitive in parts.

For example:
We manufacture all our bags in dedicated factories in India which allows us to ensure that strict ethical conditions are observed. We carry out strict quality-control checks on all our bags to ensure that they comply with the highest standards of quality. We love all our jute bags and use only the best quality fabrics and dyes on our bags.

would read much better as:
We manufacture all our bags in dedicated factories in India. This allows us to ensure that strict ethical conditions are maintained. We carry out strict quality-control checks on all our bags to ensure that they comply with the highest standards. We love all our jute bags and use only the best quality fabrics and dyes.

And again:
In many instances, our eco-friendly bags have been used as eco-friendly promotional bags providing a high-impact marketing solution for our customers.

would be better as:
In many instances, our eco-friendly bags have been used in promotions to provide a high-impact, eco-friendly marketing solution for our customers.

I had a look at the homepage of your website too - you have so overpacked the copy with keywords that the text there has the same problem. The keywords need thinning down slightly and the copy tweaked so that it flows naturally again.

Hope that helps.

[JuteBag]

Thanks Plaintext,

I will take your comments on board and make the neccessary revisions to my summary.

Hopefully, this is the first step of improvements I can make to my copy and I believe I have many more steps to take....

Kind Regards

Amit

[Richard Glynn]

Couple of observations.

You have written about what you do and what you want to say - which is fair enough. However, effective copy thinks about what your customers need to know to make them buy from you. Focus on what people want to hear NOT what you want to tell them. This is normally either how it will make people money or how it will save people money (probably not the environment in most cases - sadly)!

It's a subtle point but a VERY important one. What will the sales triggers be to make them buy?

A useful acronym is AIDA which stands for attention, interest, desire and action. It will help you organise your copy.

This is just a quick example - not gospel.

Attention: Jute bags saved retailers more than <amount> last year. More that 80% of customers would choose an eco-friendly retailer ahead of a non-eco-friendly retailer. Are your bags eco-friendly? How much happier would your customers be if they knew you were commited to eco-friendly practices? It could be the unique selling point that sets you apart from your competitors? ... And include a statistic about how many customers value eco-firendly shops.

Interest. This is where you can talk about your skills. What are your unique selling points? Biggest, best, first, most. Maybe include a case study.

Desire: And Jute bags are better value than you might have thought. Last year more than 100 retailers committed to eco-firendly bags. (Loads of other retailers are switching to eco .. why aren't you?)

Action: Isn't it time you switched to eco-friendsly bags? Call today for a free quote (perhaps include a time sensitive offer) Include contact details and website

[JuteBag]

Hi Richard,

Excellent suggestions !! Many thanks for the useful input.

I have been thinking about making it more customer-focussed than it is now... However, this copy would not form my home page copy of my website but would be copy that explains what our company does. My intention was to use this copy to provide to the event organisers of the event we are sponsoring. They need some copy to describe us when they put us up on their website and need a brief description of who we are....

If I intend to use the copy for this purpose, do I still need to make it AIDA-type ? I have never done something like this so any comments/ feedback/ experience would be much appreciated.

kind regards

Amit

[Richard Glynn]

Hi Amit.

If it's web copy it might be a bit long. Consider sticking to the three or four points which you think will be key instead of revealing your life story! And use bullet points and headlines to break the copy up.

Another level of complexity for the internet is web optimisation where you endeavour to include (and repeat) the terms which you believe your customers are most likely to use in web searches for your product.

AIDA is more sales focussed so I wouldn't lose sleep if every web page didn't follow the format. In fact only use it if you think it helps you to organise your thoughts (it's not the law or anything!)

I'm pretty sure not every page of my website follows the AIDA format ... and I still sleep at nights!

Richard