What can waiting 5 minutes at the lift teach you about the 5 steps in writing an excellent copy?

Yesterday evening I had an appointment with a friend of mine, and so I made my way out of my home and I walked to the lift lobby. When I arrived at the lobby, there was no one else there, but something in the opposite flat caught my eye, and I focused my attention to it.

I continued to wait for the lift

… and I waited… and waited.

And then after three to four minutes, I realised - hey! I didn’t press the lift button! No wonder the lift did not come to my level! Man! I felt stupid for wasting my time. I got up and pressed the lift and sure enough, the lift came swiftly and I was on my way.

Has this ever happened to you before? Setting out to achieve something (taking the lift), but you get distracted along the way and realise you totally forgot about your original objective? Have you ever wanted to go get a Christmas gift for a friend, for example, but end up so dazzled by the discounts and the merry mood and all the flashy decorations that you come to the end of the day, realising that you have got tonnes of (mostly useless) stuff for yourself, but you haven’t got what you want for your friend?

Well, if you are human (no I’m not talking to you, you Googlebot! ), then I guess you might have had this occurred to you at least once in your life.

I realise this happens to me too often, especially in writing - whether it is for my blog post, email, sales copy, or a cover letter.

Distractions. Not calling for action.

How do we make sure we write to the point then, you’d ask? Here are five simple steps you could take.

Step 1: Know your outcome

Whether you are writing a blog post, email or sales copy, you need to know what is your outcome. What is the purpose of you writing this blog post? Is it to entertain, to inform, or to persuade? What is the one thing you want your reader to feel or do after reading your copy?

Write that down.

Step 2: Draft your flow

The next step to this is to decide how you want structure your passage. For example, should you tell a anecdote first, and move on to the benefits, or should you start by presenting some testimonials? You need to know what comes first, second, third and how it will lead to you making your point.

At the end of this step, you should almost have a template for your copy.

Step 3: Fill in the paragraphs

After you have done up your draft, fill in all the meat, start writing your story, start listing the benefit.

The best words to use are simple, easy to understand words. Some writers try to show off their excellent vocabulary by substituting simple words for less common and more complex words. While you may get an A+ grade for your vocabulary, most people don’t bring a dictionary to check the meaning of those words you used, so you are not going to get your point across well - that defeats the whole purpose of the passage!

Step 4: Ensure that you have a powerful opening and a solid call to action

The first and last paragraphs of text are the most important part of every copy.

Remember, the job of the first paragraph (after the headline grabs the attention of the reader) is to get the reader to immediately want to read the whole text!

The job of the last paragraph is to urge the reader to take that action, to whip our their credit card, go do something!

Step 5: Re-read your passage, and weed out useless distractions

The fifth and final step of writing the copy is to re-read your copy, and take out all the things that might get your reader to stray away. Have you shared too much detail in your story? Have you been too naggy in getting your point across that it might disturb you reader? Is your point clear?

This is also the time where you can make any spelling or grammatical corrections.

After that, tada! You are ready with your 5 step excellent copy! Its time to hit the publish (or send) button!

Actually, I guess we have all learnt this years ago back in primary school! We don’t write our compositions off the cuff do we? We had to plan, draft and then fill in the meat. Now where did those points that your primary school teacher gave you go to?

Use this 5 step technique in your next piece of copy you write!

Tags: Copywriting