Freelance Copywriter UK Blog 2010
Latest entry, 9 December 2010
Freelancing is the way to go
I've said it before and I've said it again. Boy, am I glad to be a freelancer.
I just got sent a link to an agency report by a headhunter. The report surveyed staff attitudes to work in digital and design agencies and followed a similar report to the previous year.
And guess what? Satisfaction is massively down, pay is down, work expectations are up. Most people hate their job and the bullshit they get told by those at the top (who are still doing very nicely, thank you.)Over half plan to leave next year.
I used to do a lot of work for one very well-known direct / digital agency. Over the years, the pay stayed the same, the perks went down, the demands went up. And the ones at the top just earned more and more. In fact the chief exec of the group is always in the top 5 highest paid execs in the whole of the UK. In just a few years, his remuneration more than doubled, while those working under him were lucky to get more than 10% extra over the whole period.
People like him think they're worth it. And they think that the rest of us don't notice we're getting screwed. (I was there when he deigned to talk to the agency, spouting the usual bullshit about being unable to afford pay rises. I saw him make essentially the same speech about three years later.) It means decent talent is no longer joining the industry. And in the long-term, it's killing it.
You can download the report at:
http://www.designindustryvoices.com/DesignIndustryVoices_Report2010_091210.pdf
Latest entry, 19 November 2010
Advertising copywriting as it once was
Following on from my last post about how copywriting services have changed, I just came across this terrific page:Ads that would never be allowed today
It shows ads before the days of sexual and racial quality and health & safety. Some of the ads I had seen before, but I hadn't realised quite how bad the sexism in particular was fifty or sixty years ago (ok, sometimes even 30 years ago). Sexism? Looking at some of these ads, it's more like downright misogyny. I laughed and shuddered in equal measure at times.
Adds with headlines like: "You mean a woman can open it?" and "Keep her where she belongs" are some of the milder ones.
What's interesting is that one or two of these ads are from campaigns which, in their day, were well-known for all the right reasons.
For instance, there's an ad for a VW Beetle. The famous 'Lemon' ad created by Bill Bernbach at Doyle Dane Bernbach helped launch a whole new era of creative, thoughtful and memorable advertising. But this ad is rather less fondly remembered.
It shows the standard VW product shot. However the front driver's side has been badly dented. The headline is "Sooner or later, your wife will drive home one of the best reasons for owning a Volkswagen."
Sorry Bill, but to echo that famous first ad of yours, this one is definitely a lemon.
Latest entry, 29 October 2010
Copywriting services - how they've changed over the years
When I started out over 20 years ago, it was ideas which inspired me to get into advertising. You wouldn't think it to look at the quality of most of the TV and press advertising now, but there were many, many great commercials and press ads.
I wanted to be a part of this business. Specifically, to create great ideas.
And for a while, I was. Not one of the stars, to be sure, but I worked for some decent agencies and came up with some nice stuff, if I say so myself.
Then, in the early 90s, things started getting a bit tougher. The ad business was in recession. Fortunately, the direct marketing business wasn't. In fact it was thriving. So working now as a freelance copywriter, I took the decision to concentrate on that.
I was lucky enough to do a lot of work for probably the best direct response creative director in the business. First for one great agency and later for another, and working on big brands too. I was still working with ideas, it's just that they tended to come in folded form and with a letter. Which meant that I had to develop my copywriting skills- in other words, do great body copy, not just great headlines.
Then times started to change. Great ideas in both advertising and direct mail were becoming less of a requirement. I wanted to branch out. I could also see which way the wind was blowing.
I started to do quite a lot of brochure copywriting (and still do). But precious few ideas were wanted there, for the most part.
Of course, digital was becoming big. But here too, big ideas were thin on the ground.
However, one area of new media copywriting did really interest me. Search engine optimisation copywriting. Done badly (and increasingly ineffectively) it was about using the keywords you were given and stuffing them any old how into reams and reams of copy.
But done well, it could be both satisfying and extremely effective. Just choosing the best keywords was an art in itself. And one thing I've always liked about it is you can see just how effective simply by entering the chosen search terms into Google a few months down the line and seeing where you are in the results.
My first project was, not surprisingly, my own website. I researched what was necessary, worked hard, read and listened a lot and, in time, got the results I wanted.
As well as now being my leading source of work, my website is both my showcase and my best advert for what I do.
More and more businesses want their website to not just look good to customers who already know it's there but to actively attract more customers and conversions.
So if someone contacts me and asks me for copy optimisation for their website, they know that what I do works. After all, they probably found me via a search engine.
Which means that my search engine optimisation copywriting is a virtuous circle. The more I do it, the more of it I'm likely to get.
I do sometimes miss the days when all I did was big ideas - headlines rather than body copy. All the same, I do have to keep coming up with new ideas to help my site (and those of my clients) stay near the top of the rankings. And it is nice to be able to measure just how effective those ideas are.
Latest entry, 25 October 2010
Right brain and left brain in pitching
Dave Trott has another excellent blog entry at http://community.brandrepublic.com/blogs/dtb/archive/2010/10/19/life-s-a-pitch.aspx
It explores the two sides of how to appeal to a client if you want them to award you their business.
There's the rational side. Facts, figures and so on.
And there's the emotional side. How to get potential clients to feel that you're the one for them.
Or if you like, the masculine and feminine sides.
Because, as Dave points out, being right isn't the same as being irresistible.
In many ways, it's just the same for your average freelance copywriter.
I think I'm pretty good at the rational side. I get excellent results for my clients. Mailers which pull response. Ads which are remembered. Websites which get first page Google rankings plus high conversions.
But I also see copywriters who aren't as good picking up business. They don't get the results, but the clients still like them. The fact that they tend to be great talkers helps. I think they have the ability to make people feel really good, and this can help mask results which are less than satisfactory, at least for a time.
Perhaps I need to work at not being just right, but being irresistible. Develop the feminine side more.
I'll get me frock....
Latest entry, 18 October 2010
Why even big clients are going the freelance route
I've just read that Celebrity Cruises is offering $50,000 to anyone who can come up with some half decent ideas to sell places on their ships. As it happens, I have a couple of press ads for Celebrity in my Press Ads and Commercials Portfolio
They were used as part of a winning pitch a few years ago when I was freelance copywriting in a small London agency. However, I'm pretty sure they never actually ran.
Tempting as it is to put them forward again in the hope of netting 50k(whichever marketing bod might have seen them at the pitch is doubtless long gone) it's probably best if I don't.
But it's interesting to see how the market is going and that major clients are prepared to look anywhere for good ideas.
I have actually in the past phoned up a potential client and got them to run ads purely on spec (one of them is on the same page linked to above. But to be fair, that was a charity. I can't see a big brand responding too well to an unsolicited approach from an individual. So I think I'll leave my old speculative ads to gather dust.
Latest entry, 11 October 2010
Why it pays to use a professional copywriter, part 94
Here's how conservative minister Crispin Blunt described how he came out in a statement recently:
"He decided to come to terms with his homosexuality and explained the position to his family."
I wonder if he used diagrams, or merely bent over backwards to be clear about what he meant.
Latest entry, 3 October 2010
Disruption or abruption - it's important
I was lucky enough to work on and off for many years as a freelance copywriter with Steve Harrison, one of the gurus of the direct marketing industry, and the one who, in the UK at least, did most to raise creative standards in it.
I thought of Steve when I saw a recent post by Robert Craven in his Bright Marketing blog: http://robert-craven.blogspot.com/2010/09/disrupt.html
Robert's point is that being disruptive pays. That is having a business approach, product, marketing campaign or whatever.
And he's absolutely right. An astonishing number of people in business want to follow the herd, setting themselves up in competition with other who are doing or saying essentially the same thing.
I was reminded of Steve because one of his watchwords in creating successful campaigns was 'relevant abruption'. In other words, bringing up people short and making them stop and think, but in a way that made sense and could maybe even benefit them.
The key word here is 'relevant'. Abruption and disruption in this context are much of a muchness. The point is that it should be something that doesn't waste people's time, titillate, shock or amuse just for the sake of it.
It's something I try to do as a freelance copywriter when coming up with concepts for print ads, new media or whatever. Catch people's attention with something that could ultimately benefit them - save them money, tell them something new, make their lives easier or whatever.
It's the attention-catching part which so much modern marketing falls down on. No disruption, no abruption; just marketing bankruption (as it were).
Latest entry, 9 September 2010
Why doesn't this surprise me?
Despite the vagaries of life as a freelance copywriter, I wouldn't swap it for anything else. Certainly not for life as an agency employee. Freelance copywriting insecure? Not if you're prepared to work at it. And not compared to the life of most ad agency employees.
A recent Reuters news article summed it up. The CEOs who fire the most people are the ones who make the most money themselves. More details are at http://www.cnbc.com/id/38949303
In the same vein, it appears that 20 years ago, CEOs made 20 times that of the average employee. Today it's 39 times as much. That's certainly broadly true of the agency groups I know. I'm also willing to bet that while a CEO's workload hasn't changed much over 20 years, the average employee has to work twice as hard as he or she did 20 years ago. Where will it all end?
Latest entry, 7 September 2010
Copywriter portfolios - physical or digital? (continued)
One of the downsides in having everything digital is that it can be hard to do some creative work justice. I'm thinking particularly of unusual direct mail pieces.
For instance, one of my first projects as a freelance copywriter was to do a one-off mailing for Royal Mail. It was aimed at brand managers, and it was simply to persuade them to include a Freepost address on their packaged goods.
These were the days when the web was in its infancy. Few brands would have had their own website, and very few consumers would have had their own PC. Very different from now when many brands have their own dedicated Facebook page.
The point of having a Freepost address was that it encouraged dialogue, and helped build customer relationships.
To cut a long story short, the piece my Art Director and I settled on was to create a fake cereal packet. Cereals was a classic example of the kind of packaged goods we were aiming at. It also allowed me to write a lot of fun bits of copy on the outside. And on the inside, in typical cereal lining paper were some juicy nuggets: factsheets and a letter to help persuade brand managers that it made sense to use Freepost addresses.
Anyway, the piece worked, helped by a decent budget, some excellent production values and the encouragement and wisdom of Steve Harrison, direct marketing guru, and at the time creative director of Ogilvy & Mather Direct, the agency I was freelancing for. Lots of brand managers signed up and the piece also won a raft of awards, including an Epica and DMA gold.
But you won't see it on my website. Why? Because it's almost impossible to do it justice in a few jpegs. Everyone who sees it loves it, but they really need to hold it in their hands, turn it round, open it up and read the copy themselves.
A few months later, I did another piece for the same agency. The client was Eagle Star Direct and the message was the transparency of their offering - a clear difference, if you like. So what we came up with here was a mailer that was printed on see-through plastic.
Again, it worked really well - and won a lot of awards.
But you try reproducing clear plastic in jpgs, without a good deal of explanation. Much better to give it to people to hold and see for themselves.
Latest entry, 30 August 2010
Copywriter portfolios - physical or digital?
I was reading an interesting discussion on Linkedin recently. Someone asked whether it was still useful to have a large, physical portfolio full of work samples to help persuade a creative director you're worth bringing on board.
Speaking as a long-standing freelance copywriter, I do still have a large A2 portfolio. But it sits gathering dust in a corner of my office, and I can't remember the last time I had to lug it out to show somebody. Given that it's large, awkward and heavy, this is something of a blessing.
Having a portfolio online - such as on your own website, as mine is - also has the advantage of saving time. There's simply no need to go to interviews. For the most part, I think that's good news - an interview plus travel to and from it takes up the best part of half a day in most cases. With much of my work one-off projects, it's also not cost-effective. However, there are downsides too.
Latest entry, 8 June 2010
How Google and egos paid off for one creative
As a corollary to my post below, I was amused to see how one aspiring creative had used his imagination, together with a good knowledge of the human ego, to land a dream job.
New Yorker and aspiring copywriter Alec Brownstein used a small scale Google AdWords campaign to attract half a dozen top creative directors. When someone Googled the person's name, such as 'Joe Creativeguru' or whatever, there right at the top was a small AdWords ad saying: Hey Joe Creativeguru, Googling yourself is a lot of fun. Hiring me is fun too.'
Needless to say, it wasn't long before some of the creative directors did Google themselves and saw the ad. Four of the six gave him an interview and one ended up giving him a job. Brilliant.
Latest entry, 1 May 2010
Don't get caught in the Google ego trap.
A recent survey by Microsoft found that 40% of Americans have Googled themselves at some time or another - that is searched for themselves online.
Only 40%? It seems incredibly low (speaking as someone who has Googled himself quite a few times, mostly for curiosity and vanity).
Mind you, for all the Smiths, Joneses, Williams, Patels and so on in the world, it can hardly be worth bothering. Unless your first name is extremely unusual, or you have a very high profile online, you haven't a hope of a first page listing.
But don't worry if your name isn't up near the top. For most businesses, it's not your name that counts.
I remember writing a website for someone a year or two ago who was very concerned about keeping his name at number one in the listings for professional purposes. But much less concerned about getting on the first page for terms that people who didn't know him or his business might use.
Crazy.
While it's nice to see your name at number one on Google (as I generally am, at least here in the UK), it means lickety-spit when it comes to getting more business.
If they know my name, they're going to find me come what may. People Googling my name (assuming it is me they're after, not some other Peter Wise) will probably already know about my website and that I'm a freelance copy writer and are just looking to find the URL, or get my phone number or something.
It's the ones who want a freelance copywriter or copywriting services of some kind that I want to reach. That's why it's keyword terms like those which I push rather than my own name.
And the same goes for clients. By all means mention your name on your site - it helps to establish trust for one thing, and remind visitors who you are. But don't push it for the search engines. What you do is much more important than what you're called.
14 April 2010
The number one copywriting blog - shurely shome mishtake?
Just out of interest, a couple of minutes ago I Googled "copywriting blog". What should come up top but a blog of that name, with the URL to match.
Fair enough, I thought. Good for them. But then I clicked on the link.
It was a blog that has been in existence for all of two months. Or rather had been in existence. There were entries for December and January. 2005 to 2006.
A pathetic little excuse for a blog that hadn't been updated in well over four years was still sitting pretty at the top of the rankings.
The amazing thing was that some of the entries were still attracting comments after all this time. Which may be while it's still astride the top. But honestly....no entries in over four years!
11 April 2010
Blog reorganisation
In case you follow this (and there are a few of you), I've rejigged my blogs somewhat. All site updates are now on my Copywriting Services London Blog
This means that all entries on my Freelance Copywriter Blog will now be about freelance copywriting in general, as well as related topics, so you won't have to wade through the irrelevant stuff.
Latest entry, 9 April 2010
There isn't anything new under the copywriting sun (part 2)
The article site mentioned in my earlier post is a very good one. In fact in the opinion of many, it's the best of its kind. I've submitted more articles about freelance copywriting to them than to any other site and I don't blame them one bit for checking up on possible plagiarism.
But they're in a somewhat difficult position. They need to encourage as many article submissions as possible. And boy do they encourage them. They're forever suggesting new ways of thinking up new articles and making them easier to write. In a recent blog post / email I think one chap came up with 50 suggestions in 90 seconds or something ridiculous.
However, the more articles that get submitted, the more the same ground is likely to be covered.
As an example, I searched their site for the phrase 'copywriting tips'. There were over six thousand hits for that exact phrase, including hundreds of articles that included it in the main headline. I dread to think how many other articles majored on exactly the same topic, but just expressed it very slightly differently.
And as for the content of the actual articles, it goes without saying that the same advice keeps on coming up again and again, and often expressed in much the same way.
Which is why I've concentrated on more peripheral subjects for my article writing, such as brochure copywriting, or different angles, such as the need to occasionally stress features rather than benefits. (That said, I did once write an article on proofreading, which has since become quite a common topic itself.)
However original I tried to make an article on basic copywriting tips, other people elsewhere would have likely made exactly the same points in much the same way. Looking at a few of those articles, that's certainly the case. The irony is of course, that this topic is so over-subscribed that the authors in question could probably have got away with simply cutting and pasting from elsewhere and no-one would have noticed.
6 April 2010
There isn't anything new under the copywriting sun (part 1)
It's a theme I've touched on a few times over the years, but it's one that keeps cropping up regularly.
No advertising copywriter worthy of the name is going to simply copy an idea that one of his or her peers is currently doing, although a few will shamelessly rip off something which was done years previously, preferably in another market. And 'creative re-imagining' of something they've seen on YouTube, in the cinema or in a photographer's or illustrator's portfolio is another matter.
In the same way, no freelance copywriter worth their salt is going to simply lift copy wholesale (unless told to). But as time goes by, more and more stuff goes online, the sheer volume of information expands. And more and more often, people are going to address the same subjects - and in much the same way.
A case in point is a recent article I submitted to a leading article site. It was about the top 20 disasters in international marketing due to linguistic errors. At first, it was accepted. But then I suddenly received an email from their editorial team stating that the article was rejected and my account suspended. The reason given was similarities in my article to a piece written by someone 18 months earlier, in late 2008, although not as a free article.
I clicked the link given, and sure enough, this other person was citing some of the same examples that I did.
Should this in itself make my article worthy of rejection?
In my opinion, no. This other article was about linguistic errors generally - in books, software and so on, not just in marketing. Where the examples did match, the way they were described was largely different. So I wrote back to the editorial team highlighting this.
Fortunately, I also had a clinching argument. I had written my article several years ago, and was able to point the team to it, duly dated from 2007, on another site.
So if there had been any plagiarism, it was by this other chap of my article, not the other way round.
My article was duly accepted by the article site and my account reinstated.
But it made me think. International marketing disasters through language misconceptions was a subject I wanted to know about for another project. I was able to find a few instances here, some other examples there. But nothing in the way of what I would consider to be a definitive list. Which is why I decided to pen the article.
My piece was necessarily compiled from a variety of sources. Some of the cases I mentioned were well-known, others much less so. And I did rewrite them with some wry overtones of my own. And I do consider the article to be original. Even had it been done after this other chap's effort, not before.
Latest entry, April 2010
The importance of testimonials
Every time I'm asked to write a new website or revamp an existing site, one of my first recommendations is to have a good testimonials page.
Testimonials can make all the difference when persuading someone to buy your product or service. Relevant praise, preferably with a certain amount of detail, supported by an actual name and location where possible, is what to concentrate on.
If you have a lot of testimonials, then consider grouping them into different categories. If they refer to a specific product or service that has its own page on your site, it's worth having them on that page too.
If the service is quite complicated, then it's well worth having a case history or two, which is kind of an extended testimonial. The classic structure is to have problem / solution / results sections, but don't be tempted to put in all the detail, just the key points. If you can round it off with a quote from the happy customer, so much the better.
March 2010
CopyC*nts
Some ads are very much like other ads. Or videos, film clips, still photos and so on. The debate rages on about how much this is 'homage', blatant rip-offery, 'inspired by' or coincidence.
Much of the time I incline to the view that ads which have been essentially done before, whether as ads or something else, is simple coincidence. There are many ways you can say, for example, that a bank is friendly, a fruit drink is fruity, or a piece of software is powerful.
But many as they are, this has to be measured against the number of ideas a creative team has to come up with, times the number of banks, fruit drinks or software solutions on the market, times the numerous different campaigns that run over the years, times the number of executions within a campaign.
In other words, a great deal of repetition is inevitable.
However, I always thought that no creative worth their salt is going to simply copy another ad deliberately. But sometimes, that does seem to be the case.
At least that's what this blogger thinks;
http://copycunts.blogspot.com/
Mind you, it's not the first site I've seen pointing out advertising 'rip-offs'....
March 2010
Playing with yourself...and others
Another film from the people who brought us 'Growing Creatives in the South-West'.
A slightly strange and disturbing one this, but well worth a look. It uses an animated armadillo and a Harry Enfield Mr Cholmondeley-Warner style voiceover to promote the need for professional insurance for freelancers.
As a freelance copywriter, I'm generally not too much of a risk, but you never know...
Risk Mitigation for Beginners with Arnie the Armadillo
March 2010
The 100 essential websites
Here's the Grauniad's latest attempt to identify the cream of the web.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/dec/09/best-websites-internet
Of their hundred "essentials" I regularly look at only about seven or eight.
My essential ones include the BBC, YouTube, Guardian Online, Brand Republic (for all things marketing, advertising and copywriting), Flickr (now and then), Facebook (occasionally), Linkedin, and Rotten Tomatoes. With the last-named, I commonly (and slightly sadly)find myself looking at it after seeing a film - just to see if my opinion was shared by the critics.
March 2010
Copywriting distractions, no. 94
Here's a fun way to lose a few minutes but help a good cause at the same time.
Go to www.freerice.com and play their word definitions game. You're given words plus four possible meanings. Every time you get one right, you donate ten grains of rice to a good cause and you're given a slightly harder word.
It may not sound much, but after playing only a few minutes, I was up to over a thousand grains.
Latest entry, February 2010
Madmen's maddest moment
This week's Madmen just got weirder and weirder. The Brits were very much to the fore in this episode, which focused on all the (unwanted) change the new masters from across the pond were foisting on Sterling Cooper.
I love Madmen, but I watched the decidedly strange and awkward British characters wreak havoc, I was wondering if Madmen was turning more and more into a parody of itself.
Then came the horror moment when one of the British account men is ploughed into (pretty much literally)by a mini tractor. Blood and gore everywhere, and, as one wag put it, the poor chap was no longer able "to get his foot in the door".
And I decided that yes, the show is turning into a parody of itself. But doing it so brilliantly that I didn't care.
February 2010
Irishman pisses on French bread
Ok, it's slightly old hat now, but I've only just found this. One Irishman's protest against the Thierry Henry handball:
http://newsfromireland.com/2010/01/irishman-urinated-on-french-bread-in-protest-at-henry-handball-court-told/
I also loved this bit:
"She [the defendant's solicitor] said that Mr Larkin had become quite agitated with the result of the World Cup match and had worn an 'I shot Thierry Henry' t-shirt that he had made up in a local t-shirt shop,' she said.
Latest entry, January 2010
Women in advertising agencies - sexual discrimination?
Anyone working in advertising agencies can't help but notice that there aren't many women in the creative department. And the cry tends to go up that this is for reasons of sexism.
Nonsense. For one thing, what the critics rarely point out is that overall in agencies, women are very well represented. In fact nowadays in most agencies I think there are slightly more women than men.
Most of them just happen to be in other departments. In particular, account handling.
And there are reasons for this. For one thing, account handling requires organisation and attention to detail - something in which women often have the edge over men. It also requires good inter-personal skills - again, something in which many women excel.
As for the creative department, one reason why there aren't more female copywriters and art directors is that, in big mainstream agencies at least, they're less likely to put up with the bullshit involved in moving up the first rung or two of the ladder. Such as doing placements for peanuts. And I don't blame them.
And men, who tend to be somewhat obsessive and playful(like the small boys many of us remain in many ways), tend to have the edge in coming up with creative concepts - and in working through all the various rejections and variations necessary in order to get something that runs.
That said, long copy is becoming more and more important. Where a campaign once usually meant a TV commercial and posters or some press ad, nowadays it often involves a microsite, a mailpack, emails, flyers and so on. Increased detail and one-to-one communication, in other words. So not surprisingly, more women are becoming copywriters.
January 2010
When life tosses you a lemon...
The advertising and media industries in the US seem to be even harder hit than they are here in the UK. Apparently over 187,000 professionals have lost their jobs in the last year or two....ouch.
A group of them have done something about it and made a 30 minute documentary. It's called 'Lemonade' and you'll find it at The Lemonade Movie site
It shows what happened to them and how it made them change their lives. For one, getting the chop made him decide to...get the chop. He changed sex.
For a less radical solution, going freelance is a great option for copywriters. it's certainly the best thing I ever did. I started as a freelance copywriter 16 years ago when I was made redundant and haven't looked back.