Insights
04/12/2024
In our opinion, many brands aren’t using copy to its full effect. A professional copywriting studio can show you how to make the most of your copy. But to get you started, here are 11 ways brands can use copywriting.
Any form of communication is a waste of time if it goes unseen, unread, or unheard. The first responsibility of copywriting is to interrupt. To stop thumbs scrolling or eyes being drawn elsewhere. Whether it be on a page of a website, or a post on a social platform. A page in a report, or a line in a speech. This is the most important way brands can use copywriting. Because without attention, all else is useless and your money is squandered.
Once you have someone’s attention, you can begin to tell your story. Develop your argument and flesh out your attention-grabbing opener. Every word counts as you draw the reader in. The copywriter’s skill is to lead the reader, sentence by sentence. So that they’ve read right through before they’ve even decided to.
Where are we leading the reader? What do we want them to do? In marketing, this is crucially important and known as the call to action. But even when brands aren’t in selling mode, they can use copywriting to motivate the reader to act.
How a brand writes makes all the difference. There are a hundred ways to write the same sentence. The same sentence can be written a hundred different ways. The ways to write the same sentence can run into the 100s. Whichever way a brand chooses, it tells us something about its personality. Is it serious and authoritative, or funny and frivolous? Challenging or reassuring? Pithy or poetic?
Why is personality important? Because if you say the same thing as everyone else in your competitive set, why should customers or clients choose you? Take this unusually long 1960s headline for a petrol station brand, “If you’re driving down a road and you see a Fina station and it’s on your side so you don’t have to make a U-turn through traffic and there aren’t six cars waiting and you need gas or something please stop in.” It breaks all the rules, doesn’t it? Clever brands use copywriting to create an advantage, even when they don’t have one. It’s a form of magic.
Likeable, readable copywriting helps create brand loyalty. After all, there are some things you have to read, like bills. But there’s no reason to read a brand communication unless you actively want to. Life’s too short. Brands increase their longevity by making people want to come back and spend more time with them. Never forget they have a choice.
Humour is underrated. Obviously not every brand lends itself to a light-hearted approach. But unless you’re selling funerals or pharmaceuticals, you can afford to lighten up. Why say, “Our innovative solution utilises a thin, semi-circular strip of rigid polymer sewn in from the centre gore” when you can say, “Hello boys”?
At the other end of the scale to entertainment and humour, is simplicity and straightforwardness. It’s a way to demonstrate consideration, empathy, and respect to your reader. Sometimes people want to be told a story. Other times they just want a quick answer to a question. Helpful brands use copywriting to inform in simple, digestible chunks and to help people find their way around a website, a product, or a real life space. Writing doesn’t always have to be clever.
Brands can use copywriting to reward their customers. Sometimes literally, with incentives and offers. Other times just to show their thanks and appreciation. After all, loyalty cuts both ways, so brands that can make customers feel special and valued do well. It’s good to feel you’re in on a joke, or on the inside in some way. A little smile at the end of a paragraph goes a long way in rewarding people for their time and interest. Thanks for not nodding off.
This is similar to number 1 but here we’re talking about deliberate use of intrigue. It can be great to create a buzz of interest and build some interest in your latest announcement. If you get the balance just right, people feel they absolutely have to know the answer and will click through, read on, or stay engaged for the pay-off.
Ultimately, brands use copywriting to become brands in the first place. A logo isn’t enough without some distinctive communication around it. It’s easy to think of branding as a purely design-focused exercise. (Brandmark, colours, typeface, imagery, etc.) But brands who understand the power of well-chosen words can connect on more levels. It’s why Craft Words so frequently work hand-in-glove with design agencies. Together we give customers a fully rounded sense of a brand’s personality, approach, and attitude.
Talk to Craft Words about how you can use copywriting in at least 11 impactful ways for your brand. Contact us today.
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