October 29th, 2008 by Kelly
YOU have all of the control over your self-esteem. By controlling your thoughts and the discussion that goes on inside your head, you have the ability to improve not only your outlook on life, but your confidence in yourself and your ability to handle what life throws your way.
Over the next couple of weeks we’ll continue to look at ways for YOU to improve your self-esteem - here’s Tip #3:
Before you go to sleep at night, either journal or think about at least five things that happened today that made you happy.
Don’t make this a lot of pressure – it could be your daughter smiled at you this morning, or you finally wrote a promotional article you had been putting off. Maybe the checker at the grocery store was unusually nice. Force yourself to start recognizing and acknowledging positive behaviors rather than negative. This is especially important before you go to bed because your brain is doing a lot of processing while you are sleeping. You can’t control your thoughts while asleep, but you can set the tone.
Happy Copywriting!
Kelly Robbins
www.TheCopywritingInstitute.com
October 22nd, 2008 by Kelly
YOU have all of the control over your self-esteem. By controlling your thoughts and the discussion that goes on inside your head, you have the ability to improve not only your outlook on life, but your confidence in yourself and your ability to handle what life throws your way.
Over the next few weeks we’ll be looking at ways for YOU to improve your self-esteem - here’s Tip #2:
Think about positive things.
What gets you excited? Goals you are setting for next year? The new raise you’re going to get because you did such a great job on a project? ALL the ideal clients you have attracted to your copywriting business? Make a conscious decision to think about these positive thoughts, rather than the negative ones you tend to focus on each day. After a while the positive thoughts will be more dominant than the negative.
Happy Copywriting!
Kelly Robbins
www.TheCopywritingInstitute.com
October 15th, 2008 by Kelly
Low self-esteem is something we all face at one point or another in our lives. Some battle with lack of confidence on occasion, others all the time. We’ve all experienced copywriting projects where we’ve wondered if we had what it takes to do a good job (I know I have anyway).
Self-confidence is not a matter of knowing you can do everything perfectly and that you are a super star. To me, self-confidence is having the strength to honestly say to yourself, "I’m willing to try and give it 100% that I have to offer. Which is a damn lot!" It may not be perfect, but that’s ok. I’ll learn from the experience if nothing else.
YOU have all of the control over your self-esteem. By controlling your thoughts and the discussion that goes on inside your head, you have the ability to improve not only your outlook on life, but your confidence in yourself and your ability to handle what life throws your way.
Over the next few weeks we’ll be looking at ways for YOU to improve your self-esteem - here’s Tip #1:
Notice your thoughts.
Notice what stories you tell yourself over and over all day. Are they positive happy stories, or are they stories that make you angry or sad? Are you reliving the bad feedback a client gave you? Or the argument you had with your husband last night? The first step is to notice these negative thoughts. The second step is to stop them. I learned this trick about two years ago. It actually took me a year or two to get a handle on it, but once I did it was amazing. My business has had phenomenal growth and I am a much happier person now – ask my kids!
Happy Copywriting!
Kelly Robbins
www.TheCopywritingInstitute.com
October 8th, 2008 by Kelly
Last week we looked at 3 copywriting tips for brochure writing. Here are 6 more tips on some of the common things that should be in every brochure and tips for creating them:
- Know what other promotional materials accompany the brochure. Is this brochure being handed out all by itself, or are there accompanying materials? As a writer you don’t want to waste space by repeating information that’s in other marketing materials.
- Use bolding and subheadings to clearly break the text into readable sections. People read a brochure similar to a book (besides peeking at the back before opening). Your copywriting should walk them through the brochure page by page.
- Use bullets and numbers to clearly break down benefits and processes. Bullets and numbers make content easy to read and force you to express the company’s benefits into a few words.
- Put something important in the brochure so the reader will keep it.
Some good tips, a map — anything helpful that’s worth keeping.
- Talk to one key person in your copy – not everyone that could be reading it.
- Talk about benefits and what the product will do for you – not just the features.
For more information on brochure writing, be sure to check out our Learn to Write Copy for Brochures here:
http://thecopywritinginstitute.com/learntowritebrochures.html
Happy Copywriting!
Kelly Robbins
www.TheCopywritingInstitute.com
October 1st, 2008 by Kelly
Writing brochures can be a fun, easy and highly profitable addition to your copywriting business. If you are hired to update a website or write copy for new products or services a company has, updating their brochure can be a good upsell service to offer them, adding additional revenues to your project.
As a business owner, marketer and copywriter that creates brochures, there are several things you can do to ensure your brochures are effective and revenue producing.
Let’s take a look at ‘brochure writing 101′ and some of the common things that should be in every brochure and tips for creating them:
- The front page should sell, not just have your company name and address. We need to sell the reader on opening and reading the brochure. The front page is a great place to start demonstrating your company benefits.
- Before you start writing, know where you are in the sales process and where you want the reader to go. Brochures are often used more towards the front of the sales cycle both for business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C) selling. Questions to ask yourself:
- Is this your prospects first exposure to your company?
- Are you selling or introducing a new or specific product line?
- Is your goal to create confidence in your company and create a sense of trust?
- Know your reader. This is true for all copywriting you do, but especially difficult for brochures. I find companies create brochures as a “catch all” for their sales force and marketing team to use as a leave behind. Because there is not one specific audience the copy tends to be bland and impersonal. The writers tend to revert to “corporate speak” and don’t connect with the reader – ultimately making the brochure worthless as a selling tool.
Stay tuned next week for the rest of our copywriting tips on brochure writing.
Happy Copywriting!
Kelly Robbins
www.TheCopywritingInstitute.com