As learning and development professionals, we need to inspire, enthuse and empower others so words are part of our craft aren’t they? We use thousands every day when we connect with and develop others. I’ve noticed though that, when it comes to writing, we can have a tendency to border on the academic. Sometimes this may be necessary. It could be that we are writing for a heavyweight journal. We may have to write training objectives in a proposal in line with Bloom’s taxonomy. Clients often require a well-written set of outcomes for CPD purposes. But, when it comes to writing marketing copy, well that’s an entirely different challenge isn’t it?
With marketing copy we are fundamentally aiming to create desire and a response to our call to action. Failure here will bring doom and gloom and our beautiful, hand-crafted efforts will be destined for the bin – online or under the desk! So what are we to do? Get a copywriter in to help – but that introduces a delay and additional cost. I know from experience that I’ve sometimes had to rewrite the copywriter’s copy because it has not hit the mark or because they don’t know enough about our type of business, product and target clientele.
Copywriting is definitely an art. There’s no disputing that. At times what we are producing is so crucial that we need to call in the experts. I’ve found though, that most of the time, knowing a few winning ways with words will get you a long way on your own.
Just thinking about the words we use can have a dramatic effect on success. I have compiled a ‘little book’ of words and phrases that I’ve collected, tried and tested over the years. I call the book “ My Magic Dust Words” because using these words in my marketing copy simply has the effect of sprinkling magic dust and getting the results I need.
As my little book works for me so well, I thought I would share with you a selection of its contents:
Magic dust words:
FREE
YOU
GUARANTEED
ACCELERATE
BENEFIT
AMAZING
CRUCIAL
INSTANT
SECRETS
SPECIAL
HOW
ACHIEVE
LATEST
FAST
NOW
Oh… and by the way, here are some MUST AVOID words which are guaranteed to ruin your copy.
I call these my ‘Gunpowder’ words!
COST
PRICE
EXPENSIVE
TRY
COMPLEX
SELLING
I
ME
AIM
Bye for now
Alison
Alison Miles-Jenkins
Founder & CEO
How To Market Training
Alison is a Fellow of the CIPD
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