Copywriting UK | TENFOUR blog

TENFOUR took a visit to The Eden Project in Cornwall this weekend. If you’ve never been, you really should.

We wanted to give it a mention here because one of the great things we took from the visit was the value of being positive.

It seems that the general strategy when pushing the eco message is about stressing the disasterous consequences of non-action. This isn’t a bad thing, necessarily… but it’s clearly not the only option available to us as marketeers?

In a step away from the norm, we felt The Eden Project focused more on inspiring people. ‘Just look what can be done if you put your mind to something’, they were saying. ‘Working with the environment brings new creativity and visions rather than restrictions’.

These are great, positive messages. And TENFOUR would argue that they are more likely to have the right effect.

It’s food for thought, don’t you think?

TENFOUR has just read a nice quote about the importance of stories, in a book called Writing Short Films by Linda Cowgill.

It’s quite deep really. But we thought we’d share:

“Stories are how we understand the world… telling stories may be an essential existential act. We tell stories to define our world in causal, temporal terms we can understand. And maybe, at some level, we have to tell ourselves stories to prove to ourselves that we exist.”

Wow, heh?

We’ve always said it… the most difficult business to write about is your own.

As a business owner - one of the insiders - it can be particularly tough to highlight the benefits of your company and what it does. What are the selling points of your service or product? What will customers really be looking for? What do they need to know? And in what order?

The challenge is to step away from what you do for a moment and look at it all from the sidelines. And it is a challenge, because you’re sat right in the middle.

TENFOUR doesn’t think it’s all bad news though.

As a business owner, you have the best seat in the house when it comes to understanding the ethos of your company: the personality, its aims, and why it was set it up in the first place.

For this reason, we often advise small business owners to have a go at writing their own marketing copy before we get our hands on anything as copywriters. Even if this is stream-of-consciousness writing, more often than not there will be some gems to be found.

So, the moral of our story is: have a go. Then, pass it by someone and ask them questions.

Clients are often surprised when they send us their words to edit.

When The London Print Company emailed over a marketing brochure recently, the owner was a little surprised by our tracked changes. “I thought I could write,” he emailed. In fact, his writing was pretty good… and we told him so. But, it’s amazing what happens when you get a fresh pair of eyes.

If you’ve written any number of words for printed materials or website pages, you should always try to get someone else to look over them before you publish. It can help you to edit out surplus text, uncover repetition… and, most importantly, rewrite sections that are not 100% clear.

Even if you’d rather not get a professional copywriter on the case, pass the text by a colleague, your other half, or whoever else is around at the time. It really will be worth your while.

Here’s the text we edited to give you an idea.

TENFOUR has talked quite a bit about kids and creativity over the years (see recent short tales post).

Hawkin’s Bizaar 

A few weeks ago, we picked up a ‘newspaper’ called the Bazaar Times. Produced by Hawkin’s Bizaar toy shops, it’s 24 pages packed with articles about new and not-so-new toys, from space hoppers to jelly you can bathe in.

What’s great about it is that Hawkin’s has gone so much further than publishing a catalogue. The features are really fun (great), they get your imagination going (even better), and they appeal to parents too - the audience that really matters, in some ways (great stuff!).

This month’s paper promises a ’sun jar’ (a solar powered jar-cum-light), some ‘funky new string puppets’, and an intelligence kit for your dog. You can visit the Hawkin’s Bizaar website at www.hawkin.com.

Balloon Monkey

Something else TENFOUR has seen recently makes writing redundant altogether. Oh no, you say.

Balloon Monkey sends balloons in the post for any kind of celebration. Now they are giving buyers the option of recording their own talking message tags for a little bit more money. You record your tag over the phone and it’s then attached to the balloon for you. Fun, heh? Visit the site at www.balloonmonkey.co.uk.

Well, yes… it may all be fun. But all of the above certainly isn’t just kid’s play.