Writing Copy

[Sandra Turney]

Hi,

I wonder if someone could help me? I am promoting my company through a Readers Prize draw with a local newspaper, and I have been asked to provide 2-300 words of copy for the article. I have a half page to fill. I am really struggling with wording it - I always find it hard promoting myself - but could do it for someone else no problem!

Do you have any ideas? The offer is for 2 people to receive private one to one swimming lessons - basically to learn to swim for free. The total prize is worth aronud £500. The offer is for a new pool we will be teaching in from September in the Boldon area of South Tyneside and as this is a new area for us and the demand for lessons in the area is so great, I am keen that readers know about all the different courses and class types we offer.

Many thanks for your help,

Sandra

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

Hi,

I wonder if someone could help me? I am promoting my company through a Readers Prize draw with a local newspaper, and I have been asked to provide 2-300 words of copy for the article. I have a half page to fill. I am really struggling with wording it - I always find it hard promoting myself - but could do it for someone else no problem!

Do you have any ideas? The offer is for 2 people to receive private one to one swimming lessons - basically to learn to swim for free. The total prize is worth aronud £500. The offer is for a new pool we will be teaching in from September in the Boldon area of South Tyneside and as this is a new area for us and the demand for lessons in the area is so great, I am keen that readers know about all the different courses and class types we offer.

Many thanks for your help,

Sandra

I live in South Shields.

Just keep it simple and don't over-think the copy. If you get to write a headline for the article, then use it to explain exactly what you're giving away. Something like "Win FREE one-to-one swimming lessons for 2 people worth £500". It really doesn't have to be any more complex than that to draw the attention of prospects.

Make sure you get across the primary benefit; that someone with no swimming experience can actually learn to swim well with professional help for absolutely no cost - simply by adding this quick and easy prize draw. You can then use the last paragraph or two to touch on the different courses and classes you offer.

Another good technique to use is the good old 'cup of tea method'.

Step 1). Get away from the computer
Step 2). Make a cup of tea
Step 3). Enjoy your tea away from the computer, and lightly ponder over some ideas
Step 4). Return to the computer with a freshened mind and see what you can come up with

It works too. In fact, when I write sales copy for my clients, I often get some of my best ideas when I'm not sitting at my desk, so I have to drop what I'm doing elsewhere, run back to the computer and type it up .

Good luck!

 

[Sandra Turney]

Thanks Scott! Problem is they have said 200-300 words!! Hard to keep it simple with that much scope, plus my tendency to waffle at the best of times . Will definitely try the cup of tea method - any excuse eh?

Thanks again for your reply, sure you wouldn't like to write it for me??

 

[Call Tracker]

Headline:

Learn to Swim - Free

sub heading:

Win free private lessons for 2 people worth £500

Win the opportunity to learn to swim in a brand new pool opening in Boldon this September. If you would love to be able to swim but haven't got round to lessons, now is the chance. With private one to one lessons in a brand new pool you will quickly gain confidence and become a competent swimmer in no time at all.

visit www.website.co.uk to enter your details and find out more about our brand new pool. Or call us on xxxx xxx xxxx.



Make sure you track your enquiries.

 

[LicensedToTrade]

Rather than take Scott's advice, why don't you hire him? Copywriting is frequently undervalued in my opinion. If you are publishing copy that all of your prospective customers will see then it is important that you get it right.

You wouldn't design your own logo (or at least I hope you wouldn't) you wouldn't print your own brochures on an inkjet, you wouldn't make your own website. If you hire a professional who does this every day of the week then you will be very pleased with the result.

 

[LicensedToTrade]

Headline:

Learn to Swim - Free

sub heading:

Win free private lessons for 2 people worth £500

Win the opportunity to learn to swim in a brand new pool opening in Boldon this September. If you would love to be able to swim but haven't got round to lessons, now is the chance. With private one to one lessons in a brand new pool you will quickly gain confidence and become a competant swimmer in no time at all.

visit www.website.co.uk to enter your details and find out more about our brand new pool. Or call us on xxxx xxx xxxx.



Make sure you track your enquiries.

It is okay, but just okay. The call to action is fairly weak, the benefits are in there but could be a bit more pronounced.

 

[MASSEY]

Headline:

Learn to Swim - Free

sub heading:

Win free private lessons for 2 people worth £500

Win the opportunity to learn to swim in a brand new pool opening in Boldon this September. If you would love to be able to swim but haven't got round to lessons, now is the chance. With private one to one lessons in a brand new pool you will quickly gain confidence and become a competent swimmer in no time at all.

visit www.website.co.uk to enter your details and find out more about our brand new pool. Or call us on xxxx xxx xxxx.



Make sure you track your enquiries.

The above is perfectly fine ^^ in my opinion.

Go along the lines of that and put the word FREE in big bold and i dont see how it can go wrong...

 

[Call Tracker]

Keep it simple and try to drive the reader towards your website or persuade them to call you rather than give all the info away in the ad.

 

[allington-marketing]

Don't forget to promote your company in it, too. The competition is to get clients to ultimately use you, should hey not win and gain publicity for yourself. Make a list of what benefits your company offers. What are its unique points? Then structure a paragraph from that.
Good luck!

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

Thanks Scott! Problem is they have said 200-300 words!! Hard to keep it simple with that much scope, plus my tendency to waffle at the best of times . Will definitely try the cup of tea method - any excuse eh?

200-300 words isn't much really, you just need to be creative. In fact, if I wanted to say absolutely everything I could in your ad, I'd probably need 500+ words.

Just make sure the basic gist of what you're offering is at the start - clear as day. You can then use the rest to expand a bit further. This has the added benefit where, as you have already explained the primary offer and benefits in the first paragraph, it isn't such a big deal that many prospects will choose not to read the whole thing (which will happen).

Keep it simple and try to drive the reader towards your website or persuade them to call you rather than give all the info away in the ad.

It isn't always as simple as that. If you end up trying to avoid giving away all of the information in your ad, then it's very easy to go a step too far and severely damage the response rate - as there wouldn't be enough information for them to even pick up the phone.

Don't rely on curiosity to generate phone calls and leads. When people give you a call, you want them to be eager to enter the competition. The article is more than enough to do something like that, so trying to forward them onto websites or calls to hit them with more selling simply isn't needed, and probably wouldn't work as well for something like a prize draw.

 

[Call Tracker]

Don't rely on curiosity to generate phone calls and leads. When people give you a call, you want them to be eager to enter the competition. The article is more than enough to do something like that, so trying to forward them onto websites or calls to hit them with more selling simply isn't needed, and probably wouldn't work as well for something like a prize draw.

You need to have an objective though and that would be to get them to find out more about your swiming lessons. You can't give them all the lesson times, location and descriptions of prices in one 200 word advert so you want them to call you or visit your site to find out more.

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

You need to have an objective though and that would be to get them to find out more about your swiming lessons. You can't give them all the lesson times, location and descriptions of prices in one 200 word advert so you want them to call you or visit your site to find out more.

The objective is to get people to sign up to the competition. They're more involved, more likely to buy afterwards (even if they lose) and, if you have access to their data, then it makes for a very handy mailing list of prospects who are interested in swimming lessons. It's all a nice big win-win situation for the business behind the competition.

As I said, your main priority for this article is to get sign-ups for the competition (which in-turn generates awareness of the lessons, but that isn't the purpose of the text in this ad). You should use as much of the article as required to achieve that, and then use the rest to convince people to have a browse through your site or give you a call. If you hold back on information to try and generate curiosity so they visit the website, then you'll end up with fewer competition sign-ups, and probably not many website visits either.

 

[Be Known PR]

Might be worth finding out if you can do a reader offer to go alongside the competition as well. Something like 'Not lucky enough to win, then xxxxx is offering all Chronicle readers an exclusive offer of five lessons for the price of three if booked before the end of October.'

My tuppance worth of advice is not to use too much of your word count on the prize and instead make sure you sell yourself/your business. Do a sentance or two on the prize and then a sentance or two on your experience/why you. Include vital info such as cost of classes, who you teach (adults/children/both) and how to contact you.

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

My tuppance worth of advice is not to use too much of your word count on the prize and instead make sure you sell yourself/your business. Do a sentance or two on the prize and then a sentance or two on your experience/why you. Include vital info such as cost of classes, who you teach (adults/children/both) and how to contact you.

Right to a degree. What's important is that as much of the text is used as required to convince as many people as possible to sign up to the competition. Nothing more, and nothing less. Any remaining space for text is then open to talking more about the business.

What you don't do is sacrifice talking about the competition for the sake of explaining more about the business. If you do that, then competition sign-ups will be lower, mailing data from the competition will be lower (if applicable) and the extra copy used on talking more on the business probably won't make anywhere near as much of a difference to outweigh that.

 

[Be Known PR]

Right to a degree. What's important is that as much of the text is used as required to convince as many people as possible to sign up to the competition. Nothing more, and nothing less. Any remaining space for text is then open to talking more about the business.

What you don't do is sacrifice talking about the competition for the sake of explaining more about the business. If you do that, then competition sign-ups will be lower, mailing data from the competition will be lower (if applicable) and the extra copy used on talking more on the business probably won't make anywhere near as much of a difference to outweigh that.

That is assuming the data is available. In recent years I have found that newspapers and magazines have become increasingly reluctant to hand over competition entrants data.

Guess there are two schools of thought. One is to do whatever you can to get mazimum entries. The other is to use the space you are given to get the strongest message to all readers.

I would argue that there is no point holding important info back so that you can mail it to the 150 people who enter and actually tick that they are happy to be mailed, when you have the chance to say it to the 10,000 who might stop and glance but not enter.

 

[Call Tracker]

I agree with Be Known PR in that the main objective is to raise awareness for the swimming lessons. The competition is simply a 'hook' to get prospects looking your way.

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

That is assuming the data is available. In recent years I have found that newspapers and magazines have become increasingly reluctant to hand over competition entrants data.

It certainly does. If the data is available, then that's great. If not, then there are still benefits. Plus, it depends how the competition is being orchestrated.

Guess there are two schools of thought. One is to do whatever you can to get mazimum entries. The other is to use the space you are given to get the strongest message to all readers.

I would argue that there is no point holding important info back so that you can mail it to the 150 people who enter and actually tick that they are happy to be mailed, when you have the chance to say it to the 10,000 who might stop and glance but not enter.

Personally, I think you have to look at the type of prospects involved. All you should really take any notice of are those who are interested in swimming and, most importantly, learning to swim. The vast majority of these people are likely to enter the competition, and those who aren't interested enough really aren't worth targeting anyway if you want to be even remotely efficient with your marketing efforts.

So, even if you send out a message to 10,000 people, those 150 are likely to be the majority of the only ones who are interested in swimming lessons (especially as they're free to win).

It's worth remembering that this appears to be primarily promoting swimming lessons, and not the swimming pool itself. If this was a competition to promote a swimming pool in the area, then I would agree that getting the message across to as many people as possible would be the best option.

All I'm saying is never sacrifice the competition sign-up rate just to get more info across about the business. At the very end of it all, you're likely to end up with fewer clients and less money in your pocket from it, and that's the most important thing. Awareness is all well and good, but it needs to translate into sales.

At the same time though, don't say one word over what you need to convince relevant prospects to enter the competition. You then have the remaining space to speak more about the lessons and point prospects towards the website. You could have 80% of the copy remaining to talk all about the lessons and business as a whole, but at least you've got your point across about the competition to encourage as many sign-ups as possible.

Ta-da. Best of both worlds.

 

[Be Known PR]

So, even if you send out a message to 10,000 people, those 150 are likely to be the majority of the only ones who are interested in swimming lessons (especially as they're free to win).

I am a cynic when it comes to competition entrants and tend to advise clients that the space is more valuable than the competition entrants data - stress why I suggested a reader offer.

There seems to be a human aversion to entering competitions, whether it be through distrust or lack of belief/the 'I never win anything' attitude. On this basis there will be a swathe of people who are interested in lessons but won't bother entering the competition.

There is of course another group of people who spend their lives entering competitions, whether it is for a holiday, swimming lessons or a used tissue. Therefore of those 150, some will be grannies who have entered to win for the grand children simply because they like swimming without thinking about the fact they can already swim, some will be entering in the hope that (despite it clearly ruling it out in the T&C's) they cash in the prize for the £500 value, some will have entered because they are just lonely and have nothing else to do and some will probably even have entered from the newspapers website and don't even live in the north of England.

My point is not to dishearten Sandra - having said all of the above I should stress that I think competitions are a useful tool for promotion. My approach though is that whilst you can't control the quality of who enters the competition, you can control the way you use the valuable space.

At the same time though, don't say one word over what you need to convince relevant prospects to enter the competition. You then have the remaining space to speak more about the lessons and point prospects towards the website. You could have 80% of the copy remaining to talk all about the lessons and business as a whole, but at least you've got your point across about the competition to encourage as many sign-ups as possible.

Ta-da. Best of both worlds.

Very diplomatic, yes, that is probably the best approach to make the most of the limited space.

...and moving on. How about:

WIN £250 worth of FREE Swimming Lessons

Test the water for FREE and keep your finances afloat with the chance to WIN £250 worth of swimming lessons from award winning teachers.

Two lucky winners will each be treated to 15(?) FREE lessons at the newly opened pool at Boldon Leisure Centre.

To enter xxxxxxxxxxxx (newspaper will probably set the rules on how to enter)

The Sandra Turney Swim School
The North East's leading swimming school, offering one-to-one and group lessons throughout the region for everyone from newborns to pensioners.

Awarded with an Outstanding Achievement Award and a Top Teacher Award by the Amateur Swimming Association in 2009.

One-to-one lessons – 30 minute private tuition from £17 per lesson
Group lessons – 6 week courses for children and adults in groups of 10 from £xx per lesson
Swim-a-song – introduction to water for mothers and babies
Rookie Lifeguards – accredited children’s life saving courses for 8-13 year olds

Contact: www.swimschoolnortheast.com or 0845 116 2495 (do you have a local number you can use?)

Exclusive Chronicle(??) Reader’s Offer: Book a course of 10 or more lessons to start before the end of October 2010 and get your first 3 lessons FREE. Simply quote Chronicle when booking.

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

I am a cynic when it comes to competition entrants and tend to advise clients that the space is more valuable than the competition entrants data - stress why I suggested a reader offer.

I agree. A reader offer would be very valuable and would really get the message across about the service as a whole whilst using limited text. It would be nice if Sandra is allowed to do that, but I don't know how strict the papers are these days (you'll probably know better than I do).

There seems to be a human aversion to entering competitions, whether it be through distrust or lack of belief/the 'I never win anything' attitude. On this basis there will be a swathe of people who are interested in lessons but won't bother entering the competition.

True to a degree. You'll find that as as the subject becomes more of a niche, the gap between interested people and the number of entries can reduce by quite a margin.

Even then though, I agree with everyone that some of the text should be used to promote the service as a whole - just not at the expense of saying what needs to be said to maximise the amount of competition sign-ups (which is my whole point really). It's actually a good thing to get interested people to sign-up and invest more time into it. In fact, it's one of the best ways to get someone to really take notice of what they're signing up for and the service/business behind it.

Also, with the right copy and some clever writing, you can easily achieve both of those goals with the limited amount of text. That would be the ideal thing to do.

PS: I really hope for Sandra's sake that there is some way of getting a hold of the sign-up list, as it could be one of the most valuable mailing lists you could get your hands on by a mile. There not many better ways to get a list of local people who are interested in enough in swimming lessons that they would sign up to win one-on-one tuition.

 

[G. Lasagne]

Hey Sandra,

Your based near me im north shields, i had a reader offer in the news guardian a couple of years ago and it done really well, i then put the same offer in but this time i paid for it, what i found was that when i affiliated myself with the paper i built up more trust and therefore more enquiries i.e

" News Guardian offer"
Free boiler service etc etc

done much better than

"Free boiler service"

So thats something to think about and implement if you can.

I dont think fancy copy is always the best way, it certainly didnt work for me, i think for certain things its great, but not for local services that are all about trust etc.
People are put off by " dont delay buy one today" type tactics unless of course they are buying a cleaning product or something similair.

 

[Be Known PR]

i had a reader offer in the news guardian a couple of years ago and it done really well, i then put the same offer in but this time i paid for it, what i found was that when i affiliated myself with the paper i built up more trust and therefore more enquiries

Can't resist but comment as it is always nice to see someone who isn't a PR man acknowledge this fact!!! Thank you.

 

[dagaul101]

Put yourself in the mindset of the potential swimmer, what is in it for them, highlight the exercise advantages of swimming, and the benefits of a one-to-one tuititon from a professional, basically a sales page trying to answer the potential customer's questions as best you can