Marketing copy used to be a simple business. All you needed to do was describe your goods and services in an effective and enticing way to an audience that was mostly local. On a small budget you could print a few leaflets and carry out a mailing campaign. If you had a large budget, you might engage a firm to write scripts for television or radio ads. A graphic design firm would generally take care of your print work, with only a few carefully chosen phrases (or examples of your low, low prices) amongst the tempting photos of your goods or business premises.
Marketing copy is now about all of that – and much more. Potential customers rely largely on the Internet and its search engines to find exactly what they are looking for, rather than wait for businesses to come to them. If they can’t find you on the web, they can’t find you at all.
Good web copy needs to work on many levels. Most obviously, it needs to be truthful, and give an accurate description of your goods and services. It needs to be easy to read, bearing in mind that your audience is now truly global. It needs to give customers enough information to persuade them to make a purchase or booking, but also be catchy and concise. If your text is too vague, readers will move to your competitor’s site to find something that fits their needs exactly; if it’s too wordy, they’ll lose interest in your business, even if they have all the facts they need.
And if that weren’t enough pressure on our poor old copywriter, web text also needs to be functional as well as creative. To achieve this, our copywriter works closely with the SEO team. Together they identify the relevant keywords and phrases for your business, and make use of them throughout the text and coding.
In short, good web copy needs to be technical enough to get readers on to your site, yet interesting (or ‘sticky’) enough to keep them there.
Whether you have existing copy or not, our writer can help you tread this fine line. If you have text from an existing site that Inspire is upgrading, our copywriter and SEO team can review it and offer their suggestions. If you are creating a totally new site and don’t have any text or other marketing materials to work from, we can help. Our copywriter can work with you and the approved site plan to cover all aspects of your business. As with all the other stages of our development process, new copy won’t go live until you’ve approved it. |
