#effectivecopywriting

While working on effective copywriting and developing the print ads, I fought against my commonly occurring overthinking. I would develop a sketch, over think it or force it to fit a specific strategy. I ended up taking Professor Rogalle’s advice and pushed through it. I worked on the personas first and then started sketching all the ideas that I had. Eventually, those I was able to fit those ideas into the concepts rather than the other way around. Another take away was how to understand your audience as a whole, not just as a consumer, but a human being that has a life outside of the product. My last take away was understand how the product can influence someone’s life outside of use. This allowed me to look deeper into ads to see what else they are selling aside from the product. Felton suggested “always think about climbing the ladder; in addition to a product’s obvious solution to a need, what else is at stake? Always ask yourself, what is the highest possible benefit I can claim for this product?” (Felton 2013, p.23). I was able to look at the ads in two different ways, what is the actual product, and what additional benefit are they selling. If they were selling a hearing aid, they would also sell it as the hearing aid improving communication within relationships. This helped me when working with the ads and target audience profile for the National Network to End Domestic Violence.

For the target audience profiles, I really tried to focus on having a variance of  ages – a younger woman and an older woman. One woman already has her career in place while the other is barely starting to focus on her career. I did this intentionally because domestic violence occurs to people of all ages and stages in life. I tried to write their personas in a deeper sense and really try to see how or why they would be interested in contacting or learning more information from the National Network to End Domestic Violence.

Taking what I learned about selling the highest benefits and channeling the personas, I created several testimonial ads that used different strategies, such as “President/CEO, founding mother or father, employee”, “Just Plain Folk”, “Not the person, but something associated with the person”, “Celebrity”, “Ironic Testimonials”, and “Expert Testimonials”.  With these strategies, I really tried to show how that the National Network to End Domestic Violence has various resources available to help families experiencing domestic violence. The three that selected to develop further were the “Survivor/Advocate” ad, the “Fearful Shadows” ad, and the “Promises” ad. 

The Survivor/Advocate focused on using the “President/CEO, founding mother or father, employee” strategy in order to “give the brand a human face” in order to personify and relate the brand to the target audience (Felton, 2013, p. 241). The ad was created so that the person from the target profile would be able to relate to the ad in saying that anyone who has survived domestic violence can hold additional positions in life.

The Fearful Shadows print ad is based on the concept of the “Not the person, but something associated with the person” strategy, which features a teddy bear, which is associated with children, witnessing the abuse of a child from an adult. Using the bear helps replace the use of a child, which is something commonly used, and instead uses something associated with the person (Felton, 2013, p. 243).

The “Promises” print ad uses the Ironic Strategy, which Felton describes as “making jokes on the idea of credible spokespeople (Felton, 2013, p. 244). This was difficult to complete since domestic violence is a serious topic, so instead, I focused on using situational irony.

I was asked to complete an additional ad for National Network to End Domestic Violence, and for the final concept, I used the “Celebrity” strategy. This concept features Rhianna due to high status as a celebrity but also focusing on her experience of domestic violence, which was highly publicized. As Felton mentioned in the readings, Rihanna’s image “would be used would be enough to grab the audience’s attention” (Felton, 2013, p. 245).

After working through the process of researching the organization and target audience, developing audience personas, creating sketches and then applying the concepts I learn to create effective headlines, I was able to overcome my overthinking problem, while also develop advertisements that I felt were fitting with the target audience.  I am hoping to take the strategies that I have learned and applied to my future classes as well as career experiences.

Copywriting for Email Marketing

Effective email copy is a type of copywriting. There is a science to copywriting which will help you create effective messages. You don’t need to be a copywriter to use their techniques. You can move the potential customer from curiosity to purchase when you implement sound marketing and copywriting strategies. Understand Your Product’s Benefits – Not only should you understand your product’s benefits you should understand them from your client’s perspective. What problem does the email solve for your audience? Will it save them time, make them money, or help them with something else? Know Your Competition’s Weaknesses – It might seem strange to need to learn about your competition to create amazing emails with good copywriting. However, looking at how your competition forms their emails can help you fill in the gaps and do even better for your audience. Answer the Reader’s Question: What’s in it for me? – Know the goal of the message and then frame the words to express what’s in it for the reader. How will the information make your reader’s life better? Will they save money? Will they get more time? Will they feel happier? It is key to know your target market and the folks who are on your list, and who are in your chosen market or niche. Focus on the Reader – It’s tempting to use the word “we”; but, it’s important to focus on the person who is reading so use “you” in your copy. Instead of saying “We all experience frustration”, say, “You feel frustrated when …” so that you can make it very clear that this is about that particular person. Keep Some Things to Yourself – Effective copywriting lets the audience know just what’s need to understand and get the benefit. Whether it’s making a purchase, contacting you for more information or something else good copywriting keeps unneeded details away to focus the customer on the one thing you want them to know and do. Too much information just clutters the situation. Use the Right Words – Good copywriting uses repetitive, though concise language, from the customer’s perspective to get the point across. Learn the words that make your audience feel what you want them to feel. Using words like you, imagine, and other words that really put a picture in your customer’s minds. Remember Your CTA – Always include a well thought out call to action. The call to action is the entire reason for sending your email message. If you don’t know what your CTA is, there isn’t much reason to send an email. A good CTA creates urgency and provides instructions on what the reader should do next. When you use the right words and phrases, you can calm their fears, excite their imagination, and compel them to follow through on your call to action, that’s good, motivational copywriting. Copywriting takes practice, testing, and some prep work but, it’s not difficult. Make sure that each email has a purpose, uses the words your audience understands, and lets them know what’s in it for them.  

My Mastery Journey

Reflecting on Effective Copywriting

 When I decided to make a career change to media design from education I knew it would be an eye-opening experience, but I wasn’t naive in thinking that I wouldn’t also face challenges along my mastery journey to becoming a designer. I knew this month’s course, Effective Copy Writing, was going to be challenging, yet rewarding. Writing, like public speaking is known to spike anxiety in people, and I’m no exception to the rule. But this field like many others requires a substantial dose of both, and this course helped restructure my writing foundation. It also highlighted the importance of effective, persuasive, and/or informative designer - client communication; that effectiveness carries over to what is communicated to the reader through the design.

 Anyone who has taken a psychology course has been introduced to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; in the education field it is referred to often. George Felton, the author of this month’s text, Advertising: Concept and Copy, introduced me to what he titled, a “A shopping list of needs”; Settle and Alreck’s 15 Catalog of Needs. This catalog is no ladder, there is no order to the compilation of needs; some examples are: security, achievement, dominance, sexuality and understanding. Each need has the capability to mark a unique connection with any product.

 Copy, copy, copy. This course provided the formula to create a book design with the assistance of Nigel French, create taglines, print ad copy, target audience profiles and testimonial ads. All of which will be useful post graduate school, possibly even before then if I find my groove with the Adobe programs. Though completing the conference-length research paper presented its own personal tests, navigating through Photoshop is still my principal challenge.  But I can absolutely visualize how beneficial my design background can be for my financial future. After completing this week’s testimonial ad I had an epiphany about how freelance work can help provide financial freedom which is optimal in my line of work as an actress.

 As with the close of each course…I’m looking forward to what’s next!

MDM555 Effective Copywriting 4.4.4 Mastery Journal Reflecting on the Course

Back in the course, Mastery: Personal Development and Leadership, we set up a timeline to represent our goals throughout each course. My desired goals and outcome were 1. Connect verbal and visual communication 2. Understand the concept of copy writing

The two goals I outlined a few months ago were extremely accurate in relation to the content learned throughout the course. I also definitely met the requirements to complete the above said goals. Originally I had a general idea of what copy writing is but I never actually learned the terminology and methods used to create different forms of copy – whether it is short or long copy. This skill in particular was developed through the course during our weekly discussion board posts. We were able to create ad copy for our own project organization as well as review and help redevelop our classmate’s ad copy and taglines as well. However, connecting verbal and visual communication was an ongoing lesson and comparison throughout the course. This was established through a few different assignments, including the headlines that inspire, Target Audience Personas as well as the most recent discussion board, Writing and Designing a Testimonial Ad for our client’s organization. This assignment was truly inspiring. Throughout all the discussion boards as well as the research paper for our organization gave us a full understanding of the organization as well as potential advertising ideas. During these assignments, I could sense the advertisement and different designs that could and wouldn’t work. It was nice to actually bring the designs in my head to life through this project by using our knowledge of design and our recently gained knowledge of copy writing.

Full Sail University - Master of Fine Arts Media Design