Five great examples of product page copywriting

While product page design has improved in the past few years, an often neglected area is sales copy. 

A common mistake is to simply place the manufacturer’s product descriptions on pages. While this approach is easier, a more personal touch and unique tone of voice can help your product pages stand out and really sell the benefits of products. 

I'm going to explain why good sales copy is so important, and look at some examples where retailers are getting this spot on... 

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Posted 10 November 2011 12:54pm by Graham Charlton with 6 comments

How to optimise headlines using the 65 character rule

I’m currently developing some wireframes as we pave the way for a revamp of this blog later this year. There are lots of things to think about. One of those things is typography. Closely related to that is optimal headline length. 

I always try to write headlines that fit on one line, though I don’t always succeed. Nevertheless, short headlines beat longer ones for lots of reasons. As such I’d like to introduce the 65 character rule. Actually it’s 65 or less, to be precise. 

Here’s why...

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Posted 27 October 2011 13:00pm by Chris Lake with 14 comments

Seven reasons why you shouldn’t hire a ghost-tweeter

I believe that if you resort to using a ghost-tweeter to update your Twitter feed then you’re doing it wrong.

Why? Well mainly because I think social media is about customer (or audience) centricity. It is about placing the customer at the very heart of your business, and caring about what they have to say. And as such it has an impact on – and it reflects – organisational culture. 

The brands that are doing social media right are very much focused on listening, sharing, communicating and responding. Outsourcing these tasks is myopic, and it can also be rather dangerous (especially if you fire the ghost-tweeter and fail to change the passwords to your social media accounts).

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Posted 22 September 2011 14:18pm by Chris Lake with 34 comments

Why you need a freelance copywriter

Using a freelance copywriter isn't just about flexibility and convenience. It's often the best way to get a quality result. 

A few weeks ago, Sharon Flaherty wrote a guest post here entitled Want quality content? Produce it in-house. As her title suggests, Sharon argues that the best way to get high-quality content is to employ an in-house copywriter. 

Although I commented on the post, I feel it deserves a more considered response, so here it is. 

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Posted 08 September 2011 10:12am by Tom Albrighton with 21 comments

Psychographic targeting in B2B marketing

There are so many ways to segment an audience and target your messages – by job title, industry, seniority, behaviour... But there's an important dimension that's often ignored by B2B marketers: psychographics.

How different prospects feel about things can guide your segmentation, offers and creative. The trick is to find ways to get your psychographic targets to identify themselves so you can market to their specific biases.

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Posted 08 July 2011 09:48am by Doug Kessler with 10 comments

How to use content curation to add value to your own website

If you are responsible for adding high-value content to your website, you are constantly being challenged to find page or post topics which are new, shareable, helpful and original.

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Posted 20 April 2011 13:08pm by Nick Usborne with 14 comments

Why you should start to think like a media publisher

Every business is now a media business. Smart and successful ones think and behave like media publishers even though their origins are miles away from content creation.

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Posted 18 April 2011 12:06pm by Joe Pelissier with 4 comments

Aiming content at competitors

Some brands, by their nature, find it hard to build a social profile and reap the SEO benefits. One way round this is to build a community of peers and competitors rather than customers. 

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Posted 07 April 2011 11:01am by Tom Albrighton with 6 comments

How gobbledygook clichés make your web copy invisible

Every copywriter and marketer faces the challenge of writing web copy that connects with their readers. Engaging copy encourages visitors to find out more, spread the news to colleagues and make return visits.

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Posted 01 April 2011 09:51am by Joe Pelissier with 5 comments

How to extract meaning from retweets

Everybody loves to be retweeted, unless they’ve completely messed up, but it’s worth noting that retweets aren’t created equally.

Speaking from the perspective of a publisher, we love it when our links are shared. But what I really look for is the buzz surrounding an article, rather than the sheer volume of retweets a post generates.

The background chatter is more important to me than counting up the retweets. The problem is, some retweets contain little or no additional information from the retweeter.

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Posted 15 March 2011 14:43pm by Chris Lake with 18 comments