by Sharon Ernst | Nov 12, 2024 | Marketing Writing, The Copywriter's Corner
I love that so many young people are making a living as copywriters, whether working as freelancers or in-house. But…quite a few of you could use a reminder about how to capitalize correctly when writing headlines and the like! So let’s take a quick dive into the rules you need to know… How to capitalize correctly Since you’ll be writing headlines, titles, headings, subheadings and the like, let’s quickly talk about how to capitalize correctly, because details count. To do it correctly, capitalize every: Noun Verb Adjective...
by Sharon Ernst | Nov 1, 2024 | Marketing Writing, The Copywriter's Corner
I must be in a mood, because this example of crappy copywriting has me riled. Do you see why? Do you see what’s wrong with this sentence? For context, it’s from an Amazon marketing email: “We wanted to let you know you left something in your cart.” Answer? It’s wishy washy to the point of passive, oh my! And this is not how you write a marketing email. The email says, “We wanted to…” and I think, “OK, whatever,” as the customer who received the email. “We” is all about them. I, as a typical consumer, am all about me....
by Sharon Ernst | Oct 27, 2024 | Marketing Writing, The Copywriter's Corner
A lot of marketing emails suck. I think that’s largely because email marketing is so easy to do…and that makes it so easy to do poorly. Even those emails sent out by big companies fall short. Why? Because too many of them are written from the marketer’s perspective, and that’s a turnoff for a prospect. So here’s help: If you’re a freelance copywriter or a marketer, read on for an example of a typical marketing email (names changed to protect the innocent) and my critique of it. This was an email that a client was using as the first...
by Sharon Ernst | Oct 24, 2024 | Business Writing Skills, The Copywriter's Corner
I’ll admit it: I’ve yet to use ChatGPT. And I am still skeptical that it is going to fulfill all the marketing potential I see touted on LinkedIn. But I did just write an article for a client and was given AI-generated content as the starting point. And below is what I learned during my first experience. I pass this along to help out anyone else who is either a) handed an outline generated by ChatGPT as I was, or b) generating such outlines and giving them to writers to use. Because, regardless of my skepticism, I realize that AI...
by Sharon Ernst | Sep 13, 2024 | Business Writing Skills, The Copywriter's Corner
Last time, I showed you an example of word puking from a restaurant website. It was a whole lot of fancy words that said essentially nothing that would help the reader understand what kind of food or experience they could expect. This time we have a run-on sentence—71 words—that does say something, but the reader gets lost in it because it is so darn long and confusing. Here’s the sentence, with brand names removed: The auto industry has paid lip service to digital sales for years, but with the growth of ABC’s direct sales model and...
by Sharon Ernst | Jun 13, 2024 | The Copywriter's Corner, Uncategorized
The story I’m about to tell is about wine, but it’s also about writing and editing, and your future if you’re freelancing… This story is from a while back, but the message is as pertinent now as then: Years ago, I was visiting friends in Santa Barbara, Calif. They were close friends with winemakers in the area, so I got to see the inner workings of one winery, to learn more about the process. Shipping boxes were piled in the middle of the room full of wine barrels waiting to get branded with labels. The winemaker lamented having to...
