Brochure Copywriting Cheat Sheet -
How to Create a Brochure Your Customers Will Want to Read

Brochures are a very popular marketing weapon for SMEs and corporates alike – even in this internet age.

The trouble with brochues is they’re expensive to produce and distribute, go out of date quickly, and are easy to ignore.

Worst of all, they often fail to make an impact on the bottom line. The reasons for this are many and varied, but include:

  • They’re used for selling rather than supporting the sale.
  • They’re used as a standalone tactic rather than as part of a complete sales strategy.
  • The marketing messages are vague and the copy is weak.
  • There’s no offer or call to action.

The end result is often a carton of dud brochures gathering dust in your storeroom.

To help you avoid this fate I have compiled a list of my favourite brochure copywriting resources from the best brochure copywriters in the business. These tips and tactics will help you create a brochure that not only will your customer will want to read, but will increase sales too:

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How to Write a Better Google AdWords Ad

I’ve just discovered Google’s YouTube channel and they’ve got some fantastic instructional videos on how to get the most out of your AdWords account.

This one’s on improving your ad copy. The important points to note are:

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30 Blogs to Help You Improve Your Copywriting Skills

Direct mail copywriter Dean Rieck has put together a useful list of 30 copywriting blogs that are actually worth reading. He’s based his selection on who provides the most useful copywriting tips.

The blogs that I turn to when I want to hone my copywriting skills are:

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Essential Copywriting Skill: Dramatising Benefits

In his e-book, 7 Secrets of Highly-Successful Copy, B2B copywriter Steve Slaunwhite, states: “Your real challenge, as a copywriter, is to bring the benefits derived from the features to life.”

This TV commercial for Shell petrol, purportedly written by advertising great David Ogilvy, is a great example of how it’s done.

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The Easiest Way to Make Your Marketing Work Better

When you sit at your computer to write your next marketing piece you’re faced with a challenge. What exactly do you write to persuade people to buy your product or service?

Novices tend to simply list the features of their business and products or services e.g. We specialise in… We offer a range of…We’ve been in business since… We provide same day service… We’re expert at…

Features are important. But if you want to persuade more prospective clients to whip out their credit cards there’s something else you should be writing about: the benefits of doing business with you.

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The Curse of Filler Website Content

Does your website look great, but customers aren’t picking up the phone to make an enquiry? Your website content is probably the culprit.

Here’s how to understand the difference between “filler” content and high quality content, and why you’ll want to purge the latter from your site.

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Website Copywriting Tip: It’s All About “You”

Recently a client questioned the liberal use of the word “you” in the home page I had written for them.

A central tenet of a successful business website is that it is about and for your customers.

Too many businesses use their websites to talk about themselves: We’ve been in business since… We offer innovative business solutions… We have the biggest range of… We offer superior customer service…

These messages do not work. The hard truth is customers are not interested in you. They’re only interested in themselves and their problems.

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Use Testimonials to Harness the Power of Social Proof

Nothing you can say for yourself is as valuable as what customers have to say about you. That’s because people find the endorsements of actual customers more persuasive than the hype of faceless copywriters.

Every marketer has the same problem: overcoming a prospect’s fear of making a mistake. Faced with a buying decision prospects will often sit on their hands. They need to “think about it”. It’s safer to do nothing than risk making the wrong choice. In this situation smart marketers use psychology to overcome the prospect’s inertia.

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Website Copywriting Podcast: How to Write Direct Response Website Copy Without Appearing “Tacky”

Despite being one of the most efficient, cost effective and intelligent marketing weapons, direct response marketing (aka DR) has an image problem. It’s usually associated with junk mail, infomercials, and ads for nasty porcelain figurines in the back of the TV guide.

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It’s Time for Some New Cliches

If you read just about any book on how to write well it will tell you to avoid cliches. Unfortunately most website owners haven’t read those books.

Two of my all time most hated, worn out web cliches are “innovative” and “solutions”. Trouble is, sometimes clients actually ask me to include these words in their copy. One client even described them as “power words”!

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Do You Know These 5 Reasons Why You Need a Website Copywriter?

No one builds a website to fail.

And yet many business websites fail to meet basic customer needs. Poor writing is often to blame. The information is vague, badly written, poorly organised or impossible to find.

A good website copywriter can help remedy these problems. Here are five reasons why you need a copywriter on your website team:

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text-centric: What’s in a Name?

When I started my freelance copywriting business I decided to call it text-centric because I though it was a witty description of what my business was about.

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Website Copywriter Wisdom

Here are some of my favourite nuggets of wisdom from the greatest minds in website copywriting, e-marketing and search engine optimization:

It’s the words that make the sale
“Flash animations don’t make sales. CRM software doesn’t make sales. Pictures of products don’t make sales. If you have trouble believing that, remove all the words from your site and see how many sales you make. Without great copy, your online presence is dead in the water. It’s the words that open, build, and close the sale.”
Nick Usborne, Net Words

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DIY Website Copywriting is False Economy

This week, just by chance, I happened to be emailed a client proposal for a website by a web developer. I was reading through it and came across this sentence: “By [you] supplying us with the text and content, we are able to keep your costs down.”

It strikes me that asking a client to supply their own content to keep costs down is false economy. Clients rarely create high quality content. And why should they? They’re usually not writers. And even if they are, it’s unlikely they have any experience writing for the web.

Without high quality content not only is the site unlikely to achieve its goal (to sell a product), but it could easily tarnish the reputation of the company. By trying to save a few bucks they’re jeopardising their entire web investment.

Failing to educate clients about the necessity for high quality content on their websites is a losing strategy for web developers. Sure they might make some money in the short term. But when their websites fail to create value, their clients won’t be happy and won’t be coming back or singing the developer’s praises around town.

Read Gerry McGovern’s latest spray on the importance of high quality website copywriting.

Charles CuninghameAbout the author: Charles Cuninghame is an expert website copywriter and marketing trouble shooter who helps business owners and marketing managers attract more clients.

Website Taglines: “Solution” is the Problem

One of the most overused words on the web is “solution”, as in “web marketing solution” or “SEO solution”. It’s a meaningless cliché that says nothing about the nature of your business.

Take IT&e for example. Their web tagline boldly proclaims “Cutting Edge FINANCIAL SOLUTION Provider” (view website). But what does “financial solution” mean exactly?

Are they a bank, finance company, investment advisor or financial planner? Do they offer credit cards, home or personal loans, financial services staff for business or personal wealth planning? Actually, it’s none of the above.

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Make Words the Hero of Your Website

Last year I was hired to do the copywriting for a large website. The agency’s brief to the client said that a large flash animation would be the “hero element” of the site. The agency poured a huge amount of time and money into the flash animation. It takes up about a quarter of the home page – just sitting there looking pretty.

Meanwhile I wasn’t given a brief. There was no content strategy. My two superiors gave conflicting views on the client’s marketing strategy. I was asked to rehash second-rate press releases and scavenge other content off the web. The result: a pretty site with nothing of value for the target audience. In short, a waste of money.

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