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Further
Reading ...
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Are YOU Making Money on the NET? - Leon van der Linde
Winning, or Losing? Are you forking out dollars after dollars, trying to establish a profitable Online Business? Are you making any leeway? Are you just throwing dollars after dollars at so many "guaranteed" offers on the net, and still battle to...
A World Outside The US - Dave Collins
With the exception of myself and a small handful of very remote and isolated journalists, no-one today bothers writing about the growth of the web. It's old news, and we already get it. Today's buzz is more about reaping the benefits of what's...
5 Little Known Ways To Generate Free Traffic - Jo Han Mok
Most people have the notion that generating traffic is a one-off event, and it involves spending huge sums of money on advertising. Nothing can be further from the truth. First of all, it's possible to open up streams of autopilot traffic...
Achieving financial freedom with Network Marketing on The Internet - Part 13 - Tasos Vasilopoulos
Achieving financial freedom with Network Marketing on The Internet By Tasos Vasilopoulos Part 13 - Time to work – Start building your link popularity - Search for the right partners Introduction This article makes part of a series of 20 articles....
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Creative Copywriting?
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Written By:
Elaine Currie
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There is a difference between creative writing and copywriting. It took me a while to come to terms with this but it's true, there is a difference. When I first started my home based business on the Internet I read a lot of advice about publishing articles and doing copywriting to advertise your website. There was always a distinction drawn between copywriting and creative writing. I did not understand this: surely copywriting is creative? Eventually the logic dawned on me: all copywriting is creative writing but not all creative writers can write decent ad copy. If you have never studied that particular branch of philosophy, it's like all roses are flowers but not all flowers are roses.
When I came to understand this difference, it explained for me the reason why I can write at length on any subject (stopping is the hard part) but tell me I need to write an advertisement and I go all bashful and tongue-tied. Give me a subject or, indeed, no subject at all -- just a blank page is sufficient to set me going and I'll hammer away at the keyboard until... Until when? Actually, I never really stop, just pause from time to time. Advertising copy is a different matter. I can sit for ages resisting the lure of the blank page if I know that what I need to do is copywriting to use for advertising.
This inability to write ad copy caused me problems because I wanted to advertise my home based business and various individual affiliate programmes. Plenty of pre-written ads come with most decent affiliate programmes and it is an easy matter to copy and paste these but I wanted to use fresh material instead of advertisements that everyone had seen a hundred times before. I blame my inability to write advertising copy on my upbringing: modesty and understatement were encouraged and boastfulness was the eleventh deadly sin. It seemed to me that writing advertisements for myself was akin to bragging.
Eventually, I overcame my distaste for - continued below ...
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continued ...
self-proclamation and tried my hand at some copywriting. When I compared my efforts with the pre-written ads, it was obvious that something was absent. My advertisements were dull and flat, uninspired and uninspiring. Then I discovered the secret: copywriting is a craft not an art. It is has rules which need to be learnt and practised. A course of online copywriting lessons was not hard to come by. In fact, I ended up reading several such courses on the good old Information Highway.
Rules are fine, I have a good memory. Examples are not hard to come by and it was easy to make a collection of snippets from the copywriting courses. I learnt about the importance of writing an attention grabbing headline. I can manage that, there are plenty of examples to borrow. I got to grips with selecting buzz words such as amazing, customised, effortless, excellent and, the best one of all -- free. So far so good. Use sentence fragments -- not so keen on that idea but, when you think about it, that's how conversation goes in real life, so I'll do it. Sell the sizzle not the steak --yeah, I get it. Offer benefits, not features --yeah, yeah, I can do that.
Things started to look better and better as I became familiar with the rules and I began to daydream about becoming a copywriter (like in the film "The Guys" with that nice Anthony La Paglia). My daydream ended abruptly when I found there was one rule of English grammar I could not bring myself to break. The very thought made me shudder and give up any idea of a copywriting career. I can cope with all the fragments, buzzes and sizzles. But I could never begin a sentence with "and".
About the Author
This is one of a series of articles
published by the author, Elaine Currie, BA(Hons)
at http://www.huntingvenus.com
The author’s monthly newsletter is available free
from mailto:networkerhvm@ReportsNetwork.com
You may republish this article on
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| _Additional Resources ... |
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Learned Any "Secrets" Lately? - Cathy Bryant
I mean, REAL secrets about business success - the ones that will make you rich? You know as well as I that there really isn't any such thing as a secret - just a truth that you haven't discovered yet. (I read that somewhere and I don't know who...
Four color postcard printing: Made easy - Marlon D Ludovice
Every company is thinking of a better idea how to introduce their company in the market. But because business postcard is widely known for its capability to capture the interest and to gain more clientele, every single creative style of business...
How Reliable are Cell Phones - Sharon Housley
Cellular phones and pagers are part of the "now" generation, instant contact, anywhere at any time. People are looking for convenience, comfort and security. The question is how instantaneous and reliable is the contact? Talking with someone is...
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