By Tom Mason, Communications Director
When I started writing this article, I thought it would be 10 copywriting tips… then I started writing tip number two and quickly that became a list of five…
Then three.
Fundamentally, I wanted to write a guide for the average person on how to write good copy for websites, articles and any other marketing assets you need.
Equally, if you’re an aspiring copywriter, this will be of great benefit to you.
- Have a style guide and use it
A style guide tells you and your team the rules to follow when you write copy so that nothing stands out as being written by a different person.
It gives you consistency and continuity in your work.
For example, at JE Consulting, we:
- Don’t use Americanisms (e.g. color, organize, analyze, etc.)
- Write out “per cent” instead of using the symbol (%)
- Numbers below 10 are written out in full (e.g. four instead of 4)
- Government has a capital ‘G’
It seems overkill to write this out in full but trust me, it really helps keep everything flowing and looking like the same brand.
It may not feel like it matters, but if you review your existing content, it is amazing how much inconsistency you may find.
When there’s multiple different styles of writing, your brand is watered down slightly because your audience no longer recognises it.
Simply put, you need a style guide, and you need to enforce it.
- Write like Orwell, Hemmingway and Bourdain
“A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:
- What am I trying to say?
- What words will express it?
- What image or idiom will make it clearer?
- Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
And he will probably ask himself two more:
- Could I put it more shortly?
- Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?”
The reason writers like George Orwell, Ernest Hemingway and Anthony Bourdain are so effective is not because they sound clever.
It is because there is not a wasted sentence – every line is doing a job.
If it doesn’t move the point forward, it does not make it onto the page.
Orwell articulated the thinking behind this approach in the quote above from Politics and the English Language, but the value is not in the quote itself.
It is in the habit of constantly interrogating your own work.
Your customers are not looking to be impressed by the fact you can spell (or even say):
“Rambunctiously rich caffeinated drink.”
They just want to know if you can make a decent cup of coffee.
They don’t want a long explanation of how a product works internally, they want to know whether it solves their problem, whether it is better than the alternative, and whether it is worth their time or money.
Anything that delays those answers is friction. Equally, when you write, it needs to speak to the right audience. People need to feel an immediate value and relevance in your words.
Bourdain’s writing works because it is brutally honest and unsentimental:
“Garlic is divine. Avoid at all costs that vile spew you see rotting in oil in screwtop jars. Too lazy to peel fresh? You don’t deserve to eat garlic.”
Hemingway’s works because it is precise and controlled:
“Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.”
In both cases, the restraint is the point.
They trust the reader to do their job, and they remove anything decorative, defensive, or self-indulgent.
That is the standard copywriters should aim for:
- Write with intent.
- Edit without mercy.
- Don’t use AI (except for this reason)
When you ask an AI tool to write copy, it does exactly what it is designed to do.
It predicts the most likely next word, then the next, then the next and the result is something that looks structurally correct, vaguely confident and deeply unremarkable.
The problem is not that it is badly written (in fact it can do an amazingly competent job with the right prompts).
However, there are three genuinely useful ways to use AI and that’s research, editing and planning.
Planning speaks for itself – just ask it to plan you an article on X and it will give you a rough structure to follow.
Research, equally, is fairly straightforward, especially now it’s getting better and better at trawling links online for referenced information.
(Cautionary note – AI can hallucinate information if it feels that the user’s desire for a fact is of greater importance than accuracy. ChatGPT is particularly nasty for this in my experience. So always check your references!).
When it comes to editing, AI is excellent at spotting repetition, flagging unclear sentences, tightening structure and highlighting where you have said the same thing three times in slightly different ways.
It’s good at being a second pair of eyes if you write the first draft yourself and then ask AI questions like:
- Where am I repeating myself?
- Which sentences are vague or overlong?
- What could be cut without losing meaning?
Do not ask it what you should say or to do a rewrite, but if what you have said is clear.
That’s the best way to use AI in my opinion.
Again, if you use it to write full articles, web pages or other marketing copy, people will know. The indicators are clear and readily known now – you’re not fooling anyone.
Do you need better copywriting for your brand?
Sometimes, it’s better and easier to leave the marketing work to the professionals.
We have a great team of copywriters, many of them with a previous history in journalism, including myself. We even have a Doctor of creative writing.
If you’d like help, let’s talk! Please click here to get in touch with one of our marketing experts!
