Writing is a skill that you can always improve. Whether you are a seasoned copywriter or a marketer who dabbles in writing now and again, you need to keep working on your writing technique. The good news is that improving your writing is often not a matter of mastering more complex grammatical rules about misplaced modifiers or sophisticated sentence structures. Instead of working on grammar, you should work on how to connect with your audience more effectively.
Here are five tips that will help you improve your writing:
1. Features and benefits
This is really Copywriting 101, but even veteran writers sometimes have difficulty avoiding this mistake. When writing about a product or a service, it is easy to write about the features. This is what the product offers to consumers. In short, it is about the product and the business that offers the product.
The problem is that people don’t want to read about the business, service or product. They want to hear about what the product will do for them. So, they don’t care about the amperage of the motor in a vacuum cleaner. They care that the product will last longer than its competitors and do a better job at cleaning. Customers have problems, desires and needs that they are concerned about. Unless the writer can transform the features of the product into benefits for the customer, it will not stir people to make a purchase.
So, when you are writing about a business, product or a service, always ask yourself “so what?” This will help you to uncover the benefit that customers are interested in. Avoid merely listing features; instead enumerate the benefits that the customer will get, the problems that will be solved and the desires that will be fulfilled by using this product or service. This will make your writing more compelling to your audience.
2. Forgetting the audience
The key to good writing is to remember your audience. Without any idea about your audience, you will never be able to make the emotional connection that will drive people…