How can we write high-quality copy?

What should you do if you often have no inspiration or are not in the right state when writing copy ? How can we maintain the momentum of producing high-quality copywriting over the long term? Apart from brainstorming in a small dark room, what other methods can help people write copy that impresses users? How to make copy more beautiful and easier to read? To become a good copywriter, you need to develop these 7 professional qualities.

01. The rhythm of words

Many people use the word "sense of language" when referring to copywriting. It may sound a bit metaphysical, but copywriting with good sense of language is often more readable and easier to remember.

The root of language sense lies in the rhythm and rhyme of language itself. This is why we call texts with impeccable rhythm and rhyme "poetry", and texts with such characteristics are usually more suitable for being sung, so we also call them "poems."

In the field of commercial copywriting, rhythmic copywriting will make users more willing to read on. We want our copy to be short, sharp, and to the point like a bayonet, rather than slimy, limp, and disgusting like a fish with its spine removed.

Writer Acheng's articles are full of concise sentences and powerful writing. He once mentioned a trick to make text rhythmic, which is to use punctuation marks skillfully:

Punctuation marks in my writing serve a rhythmic purpose rather than a grammatical one. When I changed "He stood up, walked over and said" to "He stood up, walked over and said", the rhythm appeared.

The Chinese language is based on four-quarter time, so our idioms are all four-character words. If I break down four words into three words, one word, and then four words again, the words themselves, rather than the content themselves, have meaning and beauty, or stimulate our sense of beauty.

The same applies when you expand the sentence to an article. An article full of long sentences will be difficult to read, but when long and short sentences alternate and short sentences are in the majority, the article will tend to have a sense of rhythm.

For example, Xiao Hong wrote at the beginning of "The Story of Hulan River":

When the severe winter blocks the earth, the earth is full of cracks. From south to north, from east to west, some are several feet long, some are ten feet long, and some are several feet long. They have no direction and appear anywhere and at any time. As soon as the severe winter comes, the earth will crack open.

Using short and sharp sentences, the coldness of the north is immediately outlined.

In "The Tree King", Ah Cheng describes a man named "Xiao Geda" who ended his life in depression because a big tree was cut down. The ending of the novel is written like this:

Xiao Geda's bones are still buried in the original burial place. Gradually, grass and white flowers grew in this place. People who know about it say: This herb is a medicine and is very useful for healing knife wounds. When everyone was working on the mountain, they often stopped to look and saw the huge tree stump, which was like the scar left after a person fell; they could also see the white flowers, which were like white bones exposed after a limb was cut.

This is the kind of text that has long sentences without being bloated and short sentences that are crisp and clear. It reads rhythmically and meaningfully.

02. Avoid heaviness and use light and powerful words

Some copywriting has a kind of magic that makes people feel that the author writes it effortlessly, but readers feel that every word is powerful and light. But what is more likely to happen to us is that the author has a hard time writing and the user also has a hard time reading.

Why are some copywritings difficult to read and appear to have a stiff and sluggish style? This is closely related to the information density of the copy, the imagery of the vocabulary, and even details such as the font size.

We already understand the importance of "conciseness" in copywriting. While carrying the same amount of information, we should use as few words as possible. However, it is worth noting that if the information density of text is too high, it will affect the effect of information transmission.

The relationship between the information density of a copy and its readability takes the shape of a parabola. Before the information density of a text reaches a threshold, its readability is directly proportional to the information density. That is, the more refined the text in this range, the stronger its readability. But when the information density of a text exceeds a threshold, its readability becomes inversely proportional to the information density. The text changes from being refined to being difficult and its readability becomes very weak, such as classical Chinese.

Therefore, when writing, we should not only pay attention to the conciseness of the copy, but also its information density. We can dilute long sentences by splitting them up or adding text with less information between sentences. As Ah Cheng said: "A good article does not need good sentences all the way through. It needs to have stupid sentences, dumb sentences, and sentences that don't seem to make sense. Then the good sentences that come after them will seem effortless and extremely good. "

In addition to information density, your choice of vocabulary also affects the readability of your copy. Some words with heavy imagery and abstract meanings will make the writing style appear heavy. Even words with complex strokes will have the same effect. On the contrary, some words with fresh imagery, concrete meaning and simple strokes will make the copy look light and easy to read.

Your choice and combination of words determine the texture of the copy. Let’s compare the following two passages:

A Copywriter

She is 400 years old and in the prime of her life.

Three years ago, in Chile, Galaxy selected her, and a lot of necessary work began at that time.

Two years ago, all preparations for her journey were finally completed and she came to Shanghai by ship. Her weight and the soil she carried with her totaled 27 tons.

She lived in Shanghai for a whole year, which was a necessary procedure for her to adapt to China. In December 2004, on a snowy night, she, weighing 27 tons, officially settled in Beijing. A 400-year-old, six-meter-tall, cold-resistant Chilean palm tree has arrived at Beijing Galaxy Bay. Another one, too.

B Copywriter

XX Duplex Villa draws on the essence of villa design from international architectural master Wright and makes use of stone on a large scale, allowing the atmosphere of American manor to be passed on in contemporary villa civilization. The spacious space displays the grandeur of North American architecture, complemented by hand-made tiles and uneven exterior walls, exuding the inherent atmosphere of a grand house. The greening rate is extremely high, with flowers, plants and trees alone costing tens of millions of yuan. The five-level vertical landscape complements each other up and down, forming a pure and beautiful ecological garden.

Comparing the above two groups of copywriting, copy B is full of long sentences, adjectives with complex characters and abstract meanings. The text appears heavy and is almost unmemorable after reading. The wording and sentence structure of copy A are relatively simple, the text has a light texture and is highly readable. The sense of story is outlined with simple words, and the high-end creations of Galaxy Bay can be felt without using exaggerated adjectives.

03. Metaphor is the flavoring of words

Why do some copywriting read boring and restrained, while others read interesting and sexy?

In addition to rhythm and moderate text density, we also need to use some rhetorical techniques to make the copy more interesting, so that users can deepen their memory of the text information during the process of savoring it.

When you feel that certain emotions or products are not so easy to convey to users, the rhetoric of "metaphor" can often build a bridge between you and users. For example, if you were to write a copy for a public service advertisement calling on everyone to spend some time with the elderly, how would you describe the emotion of "loneliness" to draw everyone's attention to the elderly?

“Loneliness hurts as much as arthritis.” This is the answer given by Freddy Birdy, a well-known Indian copywriter. He compared loneliness to a disease - arthritis. This metaphor was not made casually. Its essence lies in the insight into the similarities between loneliness and arthritis. For example, they are both common among the elderly. For example, they are both "chronic diseases" that will not kill people, but will bring long-term and difficult-to-eradicate torture.

This is a wonderful metaphor, artistic but not pretentious, not for the sake of showing off, but carrying exquisite insight.

Aristotle once said, "Metaphor is the mark of genius," which shows his admiration for those who are good at using metaphors. A clever metaphor can reduce the user's cost of understanding new things and abstract emotions, making the process of receiving information easier and more interesting.

For commercial copywriting, the key to using metaphor as a rhetorical technique is to find the connection between the subject and the object of metaphor so that it is reasonable and memorable.

Just as Xu Shunying wrote in the copy she wrote for Sino-Singapore Department Store, "Clothing is a kind of sophisticated politics, and politics is a kind of sophisticated clothing", the core insight is that clothing can bring power to people. It can give the owner of the clothing the power to conquer others and make them submit to it voluntarily, and this method is obviously more sophisticated than politics.

"There is a kind of monster in the world that specializes in breaking up the relationship between parents and children, and it's called growing up." The insight of the metaphor in this copy is that "growing up" makes the relationship between children and parents no longer close, and gradually become alienated, just like a monster that specializes in breaking up the relationship between parents and children.

Only precise metaphors can accurately convey the message you originally wanted to convey. Metaphors require insight and imagination, but you can’t let your imagination run wild, otherwise you’ll probably end up writing something like this:

Her hair shimmered in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.

Their love was so hot and burning, as intense as a urinary tract infection.

She depended on him as if she were a colony of E. coli and he were a piece of hothouse Canadian beef.

Such metaphors lacking in aesthetic appeal may make people laugh, but they seem out of place in a more serious business environment.

In addition to copywriting masters, many writers are also excellent metaphor makers that can be learned from, such as:

The malice of an honest and sincere person is like the sand in the rice or the uncleaned bones in the boneless fish fillet, which brings unexpected pain to people. ——Qian Zhongshu, Fortress Besieged

Reading is a safe haven that you carry with you. --Maugham

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go in your life, it will be with you, because Paris is a moveable feast. —Hemingway

In the cool, perfumed bedrooms, women avoided the sun as if it were the plague. —Gabriel García Márquez

The sky in the south turned pink like a leopard's gums. ——Jorge Luis Borges

There is no shortcut to learning metaphors. You just need to read more, learn more, and practice more. And most importantly, you should have a kind of cleanliness obsession that drives you to find ways to make the text more beautiful and interesting, rather than being satisfied with moving and piling up.

Writing good copy is not something that can be done overnight, but requires long-term accumulation and practice, just as Lu You said, "If you really want to learn poetry, the effort lies outside of poetry." In daily life and work, copywriters need to develop certain habits to help them feel more comfortable when they actually put pen to paper.

04. Use observation to improve the “granularity” of copywriting

Some copywriting reads like the world seen by a person with 1000 degrees of myopia, blurry and flat, while the world presented by other copywriting is clear, three-dimensional and full of details.

There are generally two reasons for this difference. One is that the ability to express is too weak, and he is unable to clearly use words to restore what he sees and thinks. The other is that his observation ability is too weak, and the world is originally chaotic in his eyes. In most cases, the second reason is often the root cause.

An excellent copywriter must be like a walking recorder or microscope, able to observe and perceive the people, things, scenes, and emotions around him or her in a very fine-grained manner.

It is also a profession that requires high observation skills. Painters need to hone their observation skills through millions of sketches, and writers also need to improve the "granularity" of their texts through repeated writing practice.

In the same passage from The Story of Hulan River, Xiao Hong describes the plants in the yard in great detail, down to the smallest detail:

The small cucumber vines are as thin as silver threads. When the sun comes out, the small vines shine brightly. The tips of the vines are as clean as threads drawn from yellow wax. There are countless such threads extending from a cucumber vine. The pointed tops of each silk vine turned around and curled back, as if to say that although they were brave and crawled everywhere on trees, weeds, walls, window frames, etc., they were still afraid.

The ability to describe the silk on the cucumber vines in such detail shows her amazing observation skills, as if Xiao Hong's eyes had built-in macro lenses.

In Love in the Time of Cholera, Marquez describes Dr. Urbino’s lunch break:

He almost always had lunch at home, and after lunch he would sit on the flower bed in the yard for a ten-minute nap. In his dreams, he would listen to the maids singing under the leafy mango trees, the hawking in the streets, and the roar of diesel engines and motors in the harbor. The sound echoed around in the hot afternoon, like a condemned angel suffering.

The singing of the maids, the hawking of the vendors on the street, the roar of diesel engines and motors, in addition to visual perception, excellent writers are also sensitive to sound.

In addition to daily writing, develop a good habit of observation. When you see a scene or thing, try to describe it silently in your mind with words. In the long run, when you write copy, you will have fewer moments of "not knowing how to start".

05. Build up your vocabulary, from the fish tank to the ocean

Many people will encounter this dilemma when writing copy: facing a blank Word, they can't type out a decent sentence, or when writing to a certain place, they suddenly get stuck and it is difficult to find a suitable word to continue.

The reason for this is that your vocabulary reserves are insufficient. Vocabulary is a factor that many copywriters tend to overlook when working or training. Many people think that they have sufficient control over the vocabulary of their native language, but the result is often the opposite.

Copywriters need to consciously expand their vocabulary. The vocabulary here does not mean that you need to store rare or fancy words, but words that can be used appropriately when you want to express a certain emotion or describe a product.

Haruki Murakami once revealed that he has a "large filing cabinet" in his mind, which stores all kinds of information. When he writes, he can retrieve it at will, very easily:

I have this giant filing cabinet in my head. Drawers are filled with all kinds of memories that serve as information. There are both large drawers and small drawers, some of which have hidden drawers inside. As I wrote, I opened the corresponding drawers as needed, took out the materials inside, and used them as part of the story.

In the daily life, reading and communication of copywriters, if you come across interesting expressions or new words, you might as well write them down and keep throwing them into your "filing cabinet". When your vocabulary reserves change from "fish tank" to "ocean", it can breed not only small fish and shrimps, but also amazing giant whales.

06. Chat more, read more information, and look at more data

One of the most common mistakes made by copywriters is to rely too much on intuition, inspiration and personal experience. However, copywriting originally belongs to business and it also requires rationality and logic. In addition to the writing skills and training methods mentioned above, how to write copy that impresses users and generates conversions is a problem that more copywriters face in their work.

When the Internet generates tens of thousands of pieces of information per second, brainstorming in a small dark room is not so effective. Copywriters should not base their insights on their own intuition, experience or cases around them, but should exercise scientific and open-minded thinking.

Get out of the small dark room and office, chat with target users , chat with more people, and even add them to your exclusive WeChat group . After writing the copy, throw it in and ask if it can impress them.

Develop good information reading habits and maintain a certain amount of information intake every day, whether it is industry or professional information. "No input, no output". The more information you take in, the broader your horizons will be.

Various data and reports should also be an important part of your information sources. They can give you a macro understanding of the market and the population. It is also very important to find reliable data reports and know how to use them. Reports produced by institutions such as the Pew Research Center, eMarketer, and QuestMobile are more valuable for reference.

07. Copywriting is a long-distance race

Copywriting is like a long-distance race. Most of the time, it makes you tired and emotionally unstable. In this process, the only person you need to defeat is yourself.

Being able to write decent text in any state without relying on inspiration or state is a professional quality that copywriters need to cultivate.

Robert McKee wrote in "Story": " Genius without craft is like fuel without an engine. It may burst and burn like a wildfire, but the result is in vain ." Emotional stability, energy and superb craftsmanship are equally important, especially for commercial copywriting. Only in this way can you continuously produce high-quality copy in stressful and even mechanized work and win the "long-distance race" of copywriting.

The author of this article @乌玛小曼 is compiled and published by (青瓜传媒). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

Product promotion services: APP promotion services, advertising platform, Longyou Games