Copywriter
In a recent Copyblogger post discussing how the king of content is being slowly usurped by the Crown Prince of Context, author Larry Brooks referenced the remarkable opening scene of Quentin Tarantino’s new movie Inglorious Basterds.
There are few writers like Tarantino, and though his verbal carpet bombs and kinetic escalation of violence aren?t for everyone, there is no doubt that the dude follows his muse. Those who love him will eagerly wait in lines wrapped around the block to show their support.
In short, Tarantino sells it every time. And by it, I mean an ironclad belief in the worlds he?s created.
On Larry?s post, a great conversation continued downstairs in the comments, where a second Tarantino clip was referenced, the “Sicilian Scene” from True Romance. Though I love both movies, I was inspired to write this post by a scene from Tarantino’s earliest feature, Reservoir Dogs.
Selling it
In Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino assembles a marvelous scene, on the surface about gaining the confidence of the men the protagonist plans to double cross. Closer inspection reveals the scene for what it really is, a seven-and-a-half-minute love letter to the art of storytelling.
The film itself is about a bank robbery gone bad, though Tarantino manages to turn the adage, “show not tell” upside down by showing only a few seconds of the robbery, while his characters sit around for the rest of the film swapping one slice of story at a time.
Spoiler alert: The hero of the tale is Mr. Orange, an undercover cop, played by the superb Tim Roth, masquerading as a fellow bank-robbing miscreant. The success of his cover hinges on convincing the other criminals of his authenticity. He does this, in part, by reciting “The Commode Story,” a fictitious anecdote that is not only amusing, but also easy to sell to the other delinquents because it deals with a dicey encounter with the law.
It is in the Commode Story where Tarantino becomes the teacher.
It’s all in the details
“An undercover cop’s gotta be Marlon Brando . . . . you gotta be naturalistic as hell — ’cause if you ain’t a good actor — you a bad actor, and bad actors is bullshit in this job.”
It?s the details that sell your story, according to Officer Holdaway, played by Randy Brooks, delivering lines obviously written for a Sam Jackson Tarantino could not yet afford.
Holdaway instructs Mr. Orange on the finer details of selling the story.
“You’ve got to memorize what’s important so you can make the rest your own.”
He then continues to expand his point with something Copyblogger has frequently preached:
“Remember, this story’s about you and how you perceive the events that went down.”
He wraps up with a version of the same sage writing advice Brian’s been posting for years:
“The only way to do that is to keep saying it and saying it and saying it and saying it.”
As the scene unfolds, we watch as Mr. Orange rehearses the story in his room with slowly mounting confidence until he owns the narrative enough to deliver it without flinching in a smoky bar populated by criminals, any one of whom could end him in an instant.
Eventually, we find ourselves breathlessly watching as the Commode Story unfolds via flashback and Mr. Orange’s voiceover.
We watch as a man packing massive amounts of marijuana finds himself entering a bathroom containing not one, not two, but four police officers and a K-9 unit. As the camera pans the officer’s narrowed eyes, the dog’s fervent attention, and follows Mr. Orange as he tries to casually go about his business without getting busted, the narration adds to the palpable sense of danger.
We feel the tension even though we know Mr. Orange has manufactured every word and was never actually in danger of being busted.
Why?
Because Mr. Orange owns the story.
Own your story
The more you write about a particular topic or in a specific genre, the tighter your work will naturally become. Your expertise will grow. Better words will come to you, and they?ll show up more quickly.
If you write about widgets, write the hell out of your widget copy.
Loving your widget is a great start, but you also have to know your widget inside out and upside down. You must know every surface, every detail. Knowledge and passion will shine through the copy and accentuate the differences between you and everyone else writing about widgets.
If you want to be a great writer, you?ve got to own the story. Fiction or sales copy, know your story like nobody else and you will write words that no one else can touch.
About the Author: Sean Platt is a direct response copywriter and independent publisher. Follow him on Twitter.
Buying online is a consumer?s paradise, right?One can compare competing offers ?til the heart?s content, all with simple clicks of a mouse.Well, it?s not that great if you happen to sell online.And what if I told you it?s not really that great for consumers, either?Sound crazy? Read on.
Preface: Start with a killer product or service
This should go without saying in our age of global competition and reduced barriers to entry. But so often merchants are looking for a magic bullet to widely distribute something that the market simply finds inferior.The problem is, there are plenty of people out there with exceptional products and services who are losing out to others with lesser offerings and higher prices.What?s going on with that?Superior marketing and sales techniques, that?s what. Here are 3 ways to level the playing field (or even tip the scales in your favor).
1. Eliminate competition with artful positioning
Wouldn?t selling online be wonderful without competition? Well, it?s possible, if only to the extent that a certain type of person considers you the absolute only option. Yes, it?s our friend positioning again, and we?ll keep talking about it because it?s so vital to success.The traditional approach to positioning involves offering a benefit your competition cannot or will not offer, thereby making your offer the only choice for those who value that benefit. It still works too ? look at the insane level of customer service that Zappos offers, and you?ll understand why throngs of people wouldn?t dream of buying shoes elsewhere.For small and micro-businesses, positioning (a/k/a your unique selling proposition) can be as simple as creating a unique bond with enough people to build a thriving business. Whether by creating a hybrid business at the intersection of disciplines, crafting a better metaphor that communicates what people need to hear, or creating an emotional bond and huge trust based on your own personality, modern online positioning has come down to connections that resonate authentically and generate loyalty.Remember, it?s not about where you rank in a hierarchy against others. It?s about carving out your unique territory and owning it outright.
2. Confront your competitors proactively
Let?s face it, in some markets, positioning alone might not get it done. When you?re selling retail items such as consumer electronics or commodity goods, shoppers are more focused on overall value for the buck.The most common merchant response to the threat of online comparison shopping is not very effective. ?Hey, let?s pretend they?re not there!? is nice as wishful thinking, but let?s be realistic.You?ll hear time and again that the initial objectives of copy in a call-to-action environment is to 1) attract attention; 2) express benefits; and 3) overcome objections. The fact that your prospect thinks you have legitimate competition is really just an objection to buying from you right now.Instead of sticking your head in the ground, why not proactively address why your offer is better than the other guy?s? Don?t assume that your prospect ?gets? that your offer is superior; ?show? her it?s better by doing a head-to-head comparison with charts, checklists, or even an interactive apples-to-apples demonstration.People examining your offer want you to be the solution to their desire or problem. It?s your job to eliminate the lingering doubt that exists in the form of objections, and like it or not, your competition is one of those objections.
3. Emotional benefits make everyone happy
We tell you over and over (and over) to focus first on benefits rather than features, because people decide to buy based on lightening-fast emotional responses, and justify that decision with logic. But what if it turned out that making purchase decisions via emotion (instead of by overly-rational research and price shopping) actually made us happier?Recent psychological resaerch indicates just that. The study focused on using proven methods to impede logical decision-making, thereby forcing people to go with emotional, intuitive choices instead.The results?Those who used primarily emotion rather than primarily logic made more consistent choices. And consistency is one of the hallmarks of a ?rational actor.? In other words, the ?emotional? people made more ?rational? choices than those who focused on rationality!What does that mean? From the study:
For the consumers, contrary to lay perceptions, attending to one’s emotional responses may prove to be very valuable in understanding one’s preferences. It is possible consumers would be much happier with choices based more on their emotional reaction. For example, if one buys a house and relies on very cognitive attributes such as resale value, one may not be as happy actually living in it, as opposed to a person who attends to his or her emotional reaction to the house prior to purchasing it.
Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide, thinks that online price shopping might actually make us unhappy. He notes that the study speculates that the Internet leads consumers to engage in more rational deliberation, which in turn produces an outcome that contradicts our assumptions about the ?online shopping paradise.?Remember, when introduced to an emotional benefit in an offer, neurology shows that our brains react as if we were already experiencing the actual benefit. In essence, employing emotional benefits not only begins the customer satisfaction experience before the sale, this latest research indicates that initial satisfaction maintains after the sale.
Isn?t bonding with prospects and customers better for everyone?
It?s amazing how many of the initial assumptions sparked by the Internet continue to be dead wrong. E-commerce was supposed to benefit the consumer by providing limitless options, and yet the counterintuitive paradox of choice shows that too many options make us anxious and unhappy.Instead, we now have an entire movement devoted to voluntary simple living. We don?t necessarily want more choice; we want something that does what we need it to do when we desire a solution.In an ultra-competitive environment, a quality product or service is an indisputable market obligation (and I?d say an ethical obligation as well). But given how we actually operate as human beings in the face of overwhelming choice, isn?t a communication approach that bonds emotionally with our prospective customers also a market obligation? Perhaps even an ethical one?What do you think? Let me know in the comments.About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. Get more from Brian on Twitter.
When screenwriter John August wrote that only non-writers get writer’s block, some readers whined (and personally attacked him).”But getting blocked does happen to real writers!” they cried. They cried because they wanted to be victims, instead of responsible for their writing blocks. They whined because it was easier and less scary than facing the facts. But when your income depends on your ability to write, whining won’t get you anywhere. It will distract you from the golden opportunity that writer’s block always offers: greater clarity and confidence.When you work it right, writer’s block is your secret weapon to becoming a better and more resilient writer. And when your ability to write is what pays the bills, that’s gold.
How writer’s block can give you more clarity
Writing flows when you are clear on what you need to say, and why you need to say it. Writing becomes a chore when you know what you need to say but are reluctant to do it. And it can dry up completely when you’re not so clear anymore. Your clarity is directly linked to how convinced you are that you have something valuable to say — and that you can say it. Both of these require courage to face the fear that any act of writing brings. So use writer’s block as a signal to stop and reflect on what you fear and why, because if you don’t acknowledge the fear, you’ll never be able to face it. All it takes to move through fear is facing it, feeling it. Saying to yourself, “Okay, this is scary. But it still needs to be done.”
How to Start unblocking yourself
If you need some concrete steps to get started on identifying the fears related to your writer’s block, try the “clean-slate” exercise:
- Take a blank sheet of paper and write down a one-line summary of what you think you’re supposed to be writing. Be as topic-specific and categorical as you can. Is it a book review, an online report, a sales page, a newsletter article?
- Write down all the ideas and opinions about that topic that have been passed along to you by other people — things that you’ve read, heard, overheard, or even imagined. Don’t forget your parents, mentors, friends, role models. Record all those voices running around in your head and lay them out on the page.
- Good. Now put that page aside because that’s not the one that’s going to turn your block into a weapon. (In fact, it’s the one that will keep you stuck.)
- Get another blank sheet of paper.
- Again, write down what you think you should be writing in the center of the page. Now, make sure you are alone in your room. There should be no one around to look over your shoulder, judge you, criticize you, or misunderstand you — in physical form or in your head. It’s important to maintain this solitude for the next step.
- Dig deep into what you have to say, what you think, and what your opinion is, stripped away from all of those from the first sheet. Put it all out on the page, and take more pages if you need to. Remember, there is no one to judge you and your task is to write without any reference to the ideas or opinions from that first sheet, but write only from within you.
This second “clean-slate” page will reveal the true reason why you wanted to write in the first place. It’s a safe place to get some clarity about what you need to say, without worrying about what anyone else will think. Going to that safe place gets you unstuck.
How writer’s block can boost your confidence
Each time you unblock yourself by writing despite your fears, it builds confidence. You realize, “Hey, I’ve got a lot to say! And I’ve got a unique position!” You teach yourself that even though your job requires you to write to and for other people, you’re really doing it for yourself — whether for income, personal satisfaction, or even good conscience. You also strengthen your writing so that nothing can faze it. You won’t get thrown off by anyone’s doubts (including your own), negative opinions, projections, or reservations about your ability to perform. Those will only cloud what you know you need to say. Most important of all, you learn that writer’s block is all in the mind. That John’s whiny commentators missed out on a mother lode of resilience any writer would envy, because they ran away from writer’s block instead of picking it up as the weapon that it is. To be a resilient and fierce writer, you need to write despite your fears. And you need signals, such as writer’s block, to help uncover your fears so you can face them. Writer’s block can’t be separated from your doubt and fear. It’s something you are not a victim of, but responsible to. It can, and should, be faced head-on.Preferably right now, if your next meal is waiting for that last page to get finished. About the Author: Melissa Karnaze writes about the intelligence of emotions on Mindful Construct and Twitter.
There?s a new version of Thesis out that has our customers excited, thanks to some really cool new features. And it occurred to me that there are a lot of new Copyblogger subscribers who might use WordPress, and yet not really ?get? what this Thesis thing is all about.
So in this post I?ll tell you what?s brand new in Thesis 1.6, and also bring everyone up to speed on why Thesis makes WordPress way better.
What is the Thesis Theme for WordPress?
Thesis is the flagship product of DIY Themes, a partnership between Chris Pearson and I. It?s the theme framework that powers Copyblogger and many other high-traffic sites.
In a nutshell, Thesis is software that delivers rock-solid SEO website code, plus unprecedented design flexibility for WordPress — without requiring the novice user to code anything.
For sophisticated users, Thesis is a search-optimized development framework that allows designers and web developers to build sites better and faster than ever before.
* SEO
Search legend Danny Sullivan, Google?s Matt Cutts, and Microsoft search engineer Jeremiah Andrick all use Thesis for their sites. So does search and affiliate marketing entrepreneur Rae Hoffman, SEO guru Michael Gray, top bloggers Darren Rowse and Robert Scoble, web-hosting entrepreneur Scott Beale, social media darling Chris Brogan, and thousands of others.
To find out why the Thesis approach to site code results in maximum search engine crawlibility, watch this quick video I put together.
* Design Flexibility
With most WordPress themes, you?re stuck with the basic look and feel that the theme designer decided on. With Thesis, you can choose between one, two, or three column layouts (and the size of each column), change font types and sizes, create a magazine-style layout, and lots more. Again, watch this video for an overview, and then dive into the three demo videos listed below the general video to see what Thesis can do.
* Support
Even with everything that Thesis makes easier, we know that people don?t want to be hung out to dry. Our support forums have evolved into a truly supportive community of over 10,000 of your fellow webmasters and bloggers. You?ll have help from DIY Themes support professionals, Thesis Certified Designers, and tons of your peers who simply enjoy lending a helping hand.
What?s New in Thesis 1.6?
Now, here?s the new goodness. Thesis 1.6 offers a lot of improvements throughout, plus two major innovative capabilities ? you can now change colors throughout the theme without getting into the CSS markup, and you can create drop-down interactive navigation menus right from the control panel in the WordPress dashboard.
* Change Colors Throughout the Theme Without Code
This is huge for someone like me, who would never mess with CSS in order to change background colors, column colors, etc. I only know enough code to be dangerous, but now if I want to throw up a new site with a varied color scheme, I can do it without bugging Chris or Tony.
Watch this video to see how to build a site with Thesis 1.6.
* Create Killer Navigation Menus
This is another awesome feature for people who don?t code. Now you can create interactive navigation menus with drop-down subpages for each choice, all point-and-click from the Thesis design panel. It was cool the other day when Mark McGuiness proudly emailed me to check out his new interactive navigation menu (Mark?s a poet and a creativity consultant, not a coder).
Watch this quick video that shows how to work the navigation options.
What About Thesis 2.0?
The buzz is already building about the highly-anticipated Thesis 2.0 ? a complete next generation approach to an already innovative theme. From what I?ve seen so far, it?s hard to believe this is the natural evolution from what we started with a year-and-a-half ago.
But don?t think you have to wait. Our current model and pricing provides all Thesis customers with every future update and unlimited access to support? so you can get started with Thesis today and never miss out on what?s coming next.
(And if you caught the hint by my use of the word ?current,? you understand that this will change in the near future. Come join the Thesis community today).
About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. Get more from Brian on Twitter.
What is good writing?Ask an English teacher, and they’ll tell you good writing is grammatically correct. They’ll tell you it makes a point and supports it with evidence. Maybe, if they’re really honest, they’ll admit it has a scholarly tone — prose that sounds like Jane Austen earns an A, while a paper that could’ve been written by Willie Nelson scores a B (or worse).Not all English teachers abide by this system, but the vast majority do. Just look at the writing of most graduates, and you’ll see what I mean. It’s proper, polite, and just polished enough not to embarrass anyone. Mission accomplished, as far as our schools are concerned.But let me ask you something:
Is that really good writing?
I think most good writers listen to the way English teachers want them to write and think, “This isn’t real. It has no feeling, no distinctiveness, no oomph. You’re the only person in the world who would willingly read it. Everyone else would rather chew off their own eyelids than read more than three pages of this boring crap.” And they’re right.Compare an award-winning essay to a best-selling novel, and you’ll notice that they are written in almost completely different languages. Some of it has to do with the audience, sure. It’s natural to write differently for academics than you would for everyday people. But my question is: who are you going to spend more time writing for?My guess: everyday people — your family and friends, your blog audience, your boss at work, maybe even a Letter to the Editor every now and again. None of them are academics. None of them want to read an essay.Personally, I think good writing doesn’t have to be educated or well supported or even grammatically correct. It does have to be interesting enough that other people want to read it. Much of what comes out of high schools and universities fails this test, not because our students are incapable of saying anything interesting, but because a well-meaning but flawed academic system has taught them a lot of bad habits.Let’s go through some of them.
1. Trying to sound like dead people
It’s a sad state of affairs when the youngest writer on your reading list has been dead 100 years, but that’s the way it is in school. I don’t know who exactly decides what’s worth reading and what’s not, but they (whoever “they” are) believe in reading the “classics,” and most of those classics are centuries old. What’s worse is that many teachers hold up the classics as examples of what good writing is, and they expect you to mimic those writers with your essays.Sure, Chaucer and Thomas More and Shakespeare were the stud muffins of their day, but you don’t see them on the New York Times Bestseller List now. Not because they aren’t good (they were freaking great), but because people can’t connect with them. By mimicking their style, you might make a few teachers happy, but you’re essentially handicapping your writing in the eyes of the public.If you want to make a connection, you’re much better off studying the hot writers of today — like Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, and Seth Godin. Watch what they do, and play with using some of their techniques in your own writing. Yes, you’ll still be mimicking the work of another writer, but at least you’ll be mimicking something people want to read.
2. Expecting someone to hand you a writing prompt
Looking through the eyes of an educator, I can see why telling students what to write about would be useful. You have a bunch of students who couldn’t care less about your curriculum, and making them write a paper about the assigned readings is a great way to force them to read the material. Makes sense . . . but it doesn’t make it any less damaging.One of the biggest challenges of writing is figuring out what to write. Whether you’re writing a memo, an article, or a letter to your mother, the process is always the same: you start out with a blank page, and you decide what to put on it. Sure, that involves considering what your audience will want to read, but no one but you makes the final decision of what to put on the page. That act of deciding is what writing is all about.
3. Writing long paragraphs
Once upon a time, it was acceptable to write paragraphs long enough to fill multiple pages with big blocks of text. Not surprisingly, that’s the way most of us were taught to write: long paragraphs, topic sentences neatly organized, lots of supporting evidence in between assertions. It was the “correct” way to write.Not.Any.More.Nowadays, most paragraphs should be a maximum of three sentences. It’s also a good idea to include some shorter paragraphs with only one or two sentences, using them to punctuate powerful ideas. It’s not so much about having a “correct” length as using paragraphs to give your writing rhythm.
4. Avoiding profanity at all costs
I admit it; this is a controversial one. Many excellent writers still hold that profanity has no place in a professional publication, while others curse like a lovable two-dollar, er, paid companion. The rest of us sit around feeling uncomfortable and wondering whether it’s okay to express ourselves “that way” or not.So who’s right? Well, I think Stephen King says it best:
Make yourself a promise right now that you’ll never use “emolument” when you mean “tip” and you’ll never say John stopped long enough to perform an act of excretion when you mean John stopped long enough to take a shit. If you believe “take a shit” would be considered offensive or inappropriate by your audience, feel free to say John stopped long enough to move his bowels (or perhaps John stopped long enough to “push”). I’m not trying to get you to talk dirty, only plain and direct.
?Nough said.
5. Leaning on sources
Most kids I knew hated digging up sources and quoting them in their papers, but not me. No, the sneaky little bugger that I was (and still am), I realized that sources were an escape route from creativity. With enough quotations from other writers, I could fill up an entire paper without coming up with a single original thought of my own. And I was rewarded for it. From kindergarten to getting my degree in English Literature, I got an A on all but like five papers.Here’s why: a lot of teachers care more about solid research than original ideas. They don’t want to see daring and inventive arguments, challenging the foundation of everything we hold to be true and arguing boldly for a new worldview. To them, it’s much more important that you understand the ideas of others and be able to cite them in MLA format.But real life is the opposite. Go around citing the sources of all of your ideas and people will start avoiding you, because it’s boring as hell. They don’t care who said what, and they aren?t interested in hearing the chronology of an idea. What they want to hear is a new perspective on a favorite topic. If it comes from you, that’s fine. If it doesn’t, that’s fine too.
6. Staying detached
We are taught that good writing puts the focus on the subject, not the writer. It’s unemotional. It gives equal attention to opposing points of view, presenting them all without singling out one as best.And sometimes, it’s true. If you’re a scientist, engineer, or a doctor, then maintaining your role as a detached observer is a great idea.For everyone else though, it’s a disaster. Have you ever read the stuff scientists, engineers, and other so-called “detached observers” write? It’s boring! Outside of their exclusive circles, you couldn’t pay people to read it.If you want people to want to read what you write, then you should do the opposite. Be more like Oprah Winfrey, Howard Stern, Gary Vaynerchuk. They are opinionated, have a unique style, and are prone to emotional outbursts.It’s no coincidence. That’s what makes them interesting.
7. Listening to “authorities” more than yourself
Who am I to criticize the writing habits you learned in school?Well . . . nobody.Yes, I’m a professional writer. Yes, I have a literature degree. Yes, other writers have paid me up to $200 an hour to edit their work, and they’ve been amazed when all I did was correct the above mistakes.But that doesn’t mean I’m right. In fact, that’s probably the most important lesson you can learn about writing:No one but you is an authority on your writing.Not me. Not your English teachers. Not Strunk and White and their highfalutin Elements of Style.The longer you write, the more you’ll realize that other writers can’t tell you what to do. You should listen to more experienced writers, sure, but never more than you listen to yourself.Great writers don’t learn how to write by sitting in writing courses, reading writing blogs, or browsing Barnes & Noble for yet more books on writing. They learn how to write by coming to a blank page, writing something down, and then asking themselves if it works. If it does, they keep it. If it doesn’t, they don’t. Then they repeat the process until they finish something they feel is worth publishing.
Sadly, most writers don’t know this
They labor under the mistaken assumption that there is an invisible standard of good and bad. And they worry that the Writing Police are going to show up at their door any minute, handcuff them, and haul them off to jail for failing to measure up.If that was true, you wouldn’t see a single writer walking the street without one of those blinking bracelets around their ankle.The truth is that you’re in charge. You. The blank page is sitting there, and you can fill it up with whatever the hell you want.So stop sitting there, silly.Go for it. About the Author: Jon Morrow is Associate Editor of Copyblogger and Cofounder of Partnering Profits. Get more from Jon on twitter.
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