Copywriting

COVER STORY

Juliet Fay offers basic advice on making sure your copy is working for you

12 ORGANIC FARMING SUMMER 2007

Our recycled packaging paper is environmentally friendly. It is made from 100% recycled post consumer waste paper by a company based in the north-west of England. They have been involved in recycling products for 12 years and they have an excellent reputation for quality products.

Have I lost you? The above is an example of ineffective publicity material – in other words, it does not engage the reader or their interests. This advert is called a ‘tombstone’: it is all about the company, not the customer. If this advertiser wanted organic farmers to buy their recycled packaging paper, it might go something like this: Caring for the environment is a core part of your business. So you might like our new recycled packaging paper. It’s thicker and it feels expensive. In fact, it is so unlike our competitors thin recycled paper that we recommend you put ‘Printed on 100% recycled paper’ on it, otherwise your customers may not realise. For more products which combine quality with sustainability, visit our website…

Here, the copywriter has provided a reason to be interested in the product.

Even if you do not need paper now, you are likely to hunt out the advert the next time you are buying because the products ticked your particular ‘boxes’.

Why is good copy important?

The role of marketing is very important for any business, particularly for those selling direct through farm shops, farmers’ market stalls or via the internet.

It produces the customer interest that leads to sales that drive production.

Whether for a flyer or your website, writing good ‘copy’ (or words) for marketing or publicity material is important. Yet it is so often neglected.

Given the nature of running a small organic business, this is understandable; but good copy can make the difference between a leaflet going in the bin or being stuck on the fridge. Publicity material costs money, so make sure that the words you put out there are working as hard as they can to bring you customers and sales.

In this article I will explore the benefits of good copy. But before you start you need to know more about your customers – and you might need to confront any negative ideas you might have about ‘selling’.

Who are your customers?

In order to write good copy you have to speak to your customers’ needs, desires and interests. A survey is an ideal way to find out more about them.

Keep it short – two sides of A4 is the absolute maximum, while multiple-choice questions will make it easier for your customers to fill out and quicker for you to analyse the results. You can always include a space for general comments at the end.

People are busy so offer an incentive to fill it out such as entry into a free prize draw.

Try to think of questions that will tell you more about your customers. For example:

of a pack of organic mixed salad leaves as an example: (see table overleaf) Using this analysis technique, together with your survey results, you can start to choose the ‘benefits’ that are most important to your customers and highlight them in all your copy.

‘Why do you buy our organic products?

(Tick as many as apply)’

From labels to websites, all publicity material provides the opportunity to talk to your customers.

Product labels describe the product and ingredients and must comply with labelling legislation. However, a single line on your product labels can encourage more sales – for example, “Why not try our full range of over 20 sausages – from old favourite pork and leek to our exotic pork and hops?”

In the example below, the Village Bakery use the packaging for their ‘Apricot Slices’ as a platform to shout out their message. The company has thought about its customers, who love organic food but feel guilty about buying processed food. The copy reassures the reader about the homemade nature of the food and encourages them to enjoy a guilt free treat.

• Healthier • Fresher • Tastier • Better for the environment • Better quality • Produced locally • Special diets/allergies/doctors' advice.

The results may confirm what you assumed – or they may surprise you. If ‘better for the environment’ scores well, then make sure your ‘copy’ shouts about the low environmental impact of farming without chemical fertilisers, selling loose vegetables, and so on.

Selling is not a dirty word As organic farming is a lifestyle as well as a business, some people feel uncomfortable with the idea of ‘selling’.

Selling, it seems, is something that call centre companies do. Indeed, “if it is good enough it will sell itself” is something I often hear. Yet selling is about solving your customers’ problems – from “what shall I eat for dinner tonight?” to “how can I reduce my carbon footprint?”

Just think about your experience as a consumer. When you find a business that is helpful, with informative sales staff selling a product or service you need or want, dealing with them is great. But when a company approaches you with a solution to a problem, it is fantastic. Think how much time and energy they have saved you. How would you think about that company now?

All publicity material is about selling and once you unwrap selling, and see it as helping people solve problems, you will find it less uncomfortable – and more rewarding.

‘Features’ and ‘benefits’ Once you have found out more about your customers, and you are comfortable with the idea that your products can solve their problems, the next step is to analyse your product. How will your product enhance your customers’ lives?

Anyone who has done any sales or marketing training will have heard of ‘features’ and ‘benefits’. The ‘features’ of a product are positive descriptions of what it is; the ‘benefits’ are what the features ‘do’ for the buyer – how the product makes the buyers life better, easier or more pleasant.

Let’s look the key features and benefits

What is publicity material?

Trust the Village Bakery Who else would spend thirty years making organic bread and cakes without any of the additives other bakers say are essential? Who else would run their ovens on renewable energy? Or give their bread nearly a day to rise?

Don’t get us wrong. There’s not much point making cakes, bars and biscuits if they aren’t delicious. But that doesn’t mean they have to be packed with stuff that isn’t food, as most people understand the word.

So we’ve always tried to combine simple ingredients with minimal processing. But the way we do it isn’t all that different from home baking.

No hidden extras or clever tricks to make things look better than they really are.

Our ingredients are grown by organic farmers who work with nature to produce vital crops from fertile soil. So when you fancy something sweet to keep you going, it’s nice to know that we’re trying to keep the earth going too. Trust the Village Bakery!

Reproduced with kind permission from the Village Bakery.

SUMMER 2007 ORGANIC FARMING 13

P H OTO G RA P HY: I S TO C KP H OTO.C O M

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nowing how busy you are, and that you are probably scanning this magazine over a coffee, I will have to start talking about something that will interest you pretty fast if I am going to keep your interest. Read the advert below:

COVER STORY CONTINUED Key features and benefits of a pack of organic mixed salad leaves:

Features

Benefits

Fresh delivered within 24 hours of being picked

• Maximum vitamin and mineral content • Maximum taste • Looks attractively crisp on your plate or in your salad bowl • Will impress dinner guests • Tastes good in sandwiches.

Leaflets can be as small as a postcard or as large as a double-sided A4 3-fold. They are commonly used at market stalls, exhibitions, or for door-to-door delivery, and give the reader an introduction to your product and company. They should be concise and colourful, focusing on two or three of your main benefits.

Adverts are shorter than leaflets and generally appear in newspapers, magazines or the internet. Adverts provide a brief opportunity to get a potential customer to contact you. With limited space, the writing must have maximum impact.

A website is your ‘virtual shop’. Some websites provide information only, while others allow customers to shop online. A website can also offer regularly updated news and information, such as recipes or newsletters.

General hints for writing better copy Mixture of leaves

• You do not have to buy lots of lettuces and different packs of leaves to get a nice mix, so you save money • You can enjoy the contrast of sweet and hot, without having to know which leaves to put in • Enjoy the growers use of new, oriental varieties of salad leaves, many of which you cannot buy separately • Convenient and easy to prepare – just wash and serve.

Certified organic

• Not sprayed with artificial pesticides, whose residues may adversely affect some people?

• Grown using a sustainable form of agriculture so you can feel good about eating it • The farm is certified and inspected so you can trust that the produce is genuinely organic.

Local

• You can feel good about supporting a local business • You can feel good that more of your money is staying in your local area • Buying this food is not supporting the excessive use of fossil fuels to fly produce in from overseas.

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When writing copy, always focus on the customer. Try to highlight benefits that will appeal to them. If you were the customer, what would you want to know?

We often describe what our product is, rather than why our customer will enjoy it.

For example, you might say your chickens are free-range, but do you explain that the eating experience is more enjoyable because outdoor birds have more exercise and the meat has more texture? Or that a free range diet gives the meat a distinct flavour? A simple recipe on the label or a handout might also encourage the cautious cook to buy your product.

Talk to your reader as though you are in their front room. Passionate as we are about organic farming, not everyone shares our fascination with the exact production process, so do not bore your reader. Think about the basic questions your customer might ask; then answer them in a friendly, direct manner. Keep it simple, clear and understandable: long words can alienate readers. Keep it lively.

Imagine you are having a conversation with your reader.

Humour is always good: just look at the Innocent Smoothies packaging. It is irreverent, slightly left-field and very effective. What did they do? They thought about the buyer and the consumer. The healthy message, ‘ just fruit, no added nasties’ is for the parents; the jokes and silly stuff for the kids.

For websites and brochures, break up the copy with sub-headings and paragraphs. Pages of text are off putting and sub-headings act as road signs through the text, helping keep a logical structure when you are putting the copy together. Do not forget the ‘call to action’: make it easy for the customer to put it in the shopping cart, telephone, go on the website or send back the coupon.

Finally, make use of brochure front pages and web site home pages. Do they make the reader want to read on? You

need sharp, simple copy and good images.

Ask a question or use an interesting fact – for example, ‘did you know that two out of three jars of baby food sold are organic?’

Writing a better leaflet Leaflets provide an introduction to your products or services, and should show customers what they are missing. By following a few basic rules, you will give your leaflet more chance of being read and acted on.

Your leaflet should encourage people to take the next step towards buying from you, such as sending off for a price list, visiting your website or farm shop.

Do not forget to make it easy for them and always include: • A telephone number or web site address in large font • A postcode so they can find your shop • A map or good directions.

Dark text on a pale background is easier to read but use the pale text on dark background sparingly for dramatic effect. Anything that makes it less legible should be avoided – for example, words over images are hard to read. Fonts point sizes 12–14 are easy to read, especially across an A4 page, although you can get away with going down to size 8 for small columns or labels. Any smaller and legibility is an issue.

Use the back page for your postal address but make sure your website address and telephone number appear on every page. Check these on any final draft; you would be amazed how often an 8 can become a 2.

Think about and distil your ‘point of difference’ and put it on the front cover – for example, ‘home reared’, ‘rare breed’ or ‘picked in the morning, delivered in the evening’. In marketing circles, the Unique Selling Point (USP) is something to be defined. Think about what differentiates your product from the rest in your field. A large pie manufacturer defined his USP as ‘our pastry is hand rolled’ – what is your USP? Finally, think about the message photos convey. If you are selling food, for example, a cooked steak generally makes peoples’ mouth water more than an Aberdeen Angus calf.

Website design If you want a website designed or revamped you will probably need a good web developer. The best way to find one is by recommendation from other businesses which have sites that are delivering sales – not just sites that look nice. You will need good support once it is up and running to ensure that you are always maximising its performance. There are five distinct areas in website design and you will need an integrated approach.

Copy Try to keep the general text on your site succinct. Some of the text is functional, such as the “contact us” heading, but even here you can make the copy more friendly – for example, ‘do you have a query?’

Graphics As with leaflets, think carefully about the photos. Choose images that convey the style and tone you want for your products.

Layout and navigation Think about the information you want in the site and then break it up in to small, manageable sections that flow in a logical order. Most sites include a home page, a contact page, an ‘about us‘ page and a links page. Your site might have a full online shop, an email order form or just a price list.

The technical performance The speed and functionality of the site is important. Most of us do not understand the technical side of websites, so make sure your chosen web developer does.

Search engine optimisation This term is used to ensure that when people use search engines like Google, your business comes high up in the search results. Again, any good web developer should be aware of this.

the ways in which your product will make them feel good.

Always remember to present information from the reader’s point of view. Keep product descriptions short but interesting and help them to find the bits they are interested in with lots of clickable links to more information like cooking and storage advice. Remember: if visitors find a site unchanged over a period of months they might wonder if you are still operating. Seasonal recipes or a newsletter will keep the copy changing on your site.

Make the most of your budget Marketing budgets are rarely adequate for smaller businesses. You may well write most of your own material, using web developers and printers when necessary. If you have limited funds make sure you use your budget well.

When planning brochures or leaflets it is always worth talking to printers about design and layout. They vary enormously in terms of what creative input they can offer. If you really are stuck for inspiration, it might be worth spending £50– £200 on creative design. Look for independent graphic designers in the Yellow Pages or the internet. Better still ask other businesses or your printers to recommend someone.

Where do you go from here?

Once you unwrap selling and think of it as helping people solve problems, you will find it less uncomfortable Writing better web copy A website is your online shop and the home page is your shop window: it must say, “come on in”. The home page should contain all the links to the rest of the site with some tasters to entice them in, such as a glowing customer recommendation.

Spend time planning the structure of your site. Various elements make a good website – for example, make sure that the reader can move to purchasing or contacting you at any place in the site.

Have the shopping cart icon or the contact icon visible wherever they are in the site. From the outset, make sure your web developer and copywriter consider search engine optimisation (see above).

Do not waste your home page with neutral information, such as your address. Once someone has clicked through to other pages on your site, they are through the door and ready to find out more and you can now show them all

If you enjoy this side of your business, and have found this article useful, go out and get more information on copywriting. But if you feel you are already juggling too many hats, spend some of your budget on a professional copywriter or designer to keep customers coming and to make your publicity material more effective.

Juliet Fay is a freelance copywriter and partner in S&J Organics, a specialist poultry enterprise. Visit www.julietfay.co.uk OF

Useful references Visit www.inst.org/copy for information on copywriting courses or search Google for ‘copywriting’ for lots of sites offering more hints and tips.

Gettins, D (2006) How to Write Great Copy, Kogan Page Ltd Blake, G and Bly, R (1998) The Elements of Copywriting, Macmillan Sugar, B.J. (2006) Instant Advertising: How to write and design great ads that get immediate results, McGraw

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