One of the cornerstones of economics is the theory of rational choice – the idea that people decide how to act by carefully weighing costs against benefits.

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, largely unforeseen by economists, rational choice theory is looking a bit tattered.  The rationality of the big players in finance, as well as the supposedly corrective hand of ‘the market’, has been shown to be an utter fallacy. Investors systematically ignored huge long-term risks, with catastrophic consequences.

Maybe the economists should hang out more with their colleagues over at psychology and organisational behaviour, where researchers have been investigating and documenting flawed decision-making for decades.

For the psychologist or sociologist, a human decision-maker still acts to minimise costs and maximise benefits (or to avoid pain and seek pleasure). But their assessment of those costs and benefits is likely to be hopelessly inaccurate, biased or incomplete.

All this is good news for the copywriter, because these decision-making biases can be exploited in order to nudge a reader towards a buying decision – even though the purchase may not benefit them in any rational or quantifiable way. This post outlines a few of the most common biases that affect our decisions, and how they can be exploited.

Bigness bias

Bigness bias is the tendency to discount relatively small amounts that are measured against much larger amounts. For example, you might regard £1000 as a lot of money to pay for a suit. But to secure a house you really wanted, you wouldn’t hesitate to increase your offer by £1000 – or even £10,000. Context is everything. For example:

For just 1% of what you take home each month, you can protect every penny you earn from the threat of serious illness or redundancy.

Distinction bias

Viewing options in conjunction makes them seem more different than when they are viewed in isolation. Exploit this by juxtaposing the promoted offering with an alternative option and emphasising some distinction between them. For example:

The EconoHeat offers four different ways to programme your heating – most controllers have just three.

The money illusion

We tend to focus on the face value of money rather than its actual purchasing power. That’s why a £10 cashback offer is so appealing – it’s free money! – whereas a voucher worth £10 is less powerful, and a free saucepan worth £10 even less so (even if we need one). Exploit this bias by quoting as many cash amounts as you possibly can when savings or reductions are concerned (i.e. talk in pounds or dollars, not percentages or fractions).

Reactance

Reactance is the urge to do the opposite of what you’re told. (As the parent of a three-year-old, I can confirm this from extensive field research.)

Right-wingers in the US often harness reactance by suggesting that a ‘liberal mafia’ is destroying America; by doing so, they position voting for the profoundly conservative Republicans as some sort of rebellion.

Apple did something similar with its 1984 and Think Different campaigns, encouraging computer buyers to resist the domination of IBM. Reactance favours new market entrants, minority choices and fringe players, who can turn their underdog status into a virtue in their marketing by inciting customers to rebel against the established order.

Neglect of probability

Human beings are awful at estimating and comparing probabilities. That’s why millions play the Lottery, even though the chance of winning (the ‘positive expected value’, in risk terminology) is infinitesimal. (Premium Bonds are a much better bet.)

This is great news if you’re selling the chance to be, do or acquire something – simply emphasise a desirable upside and people will wildly overestimate their chances of success.

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Déformation professionnelle

Déformation professionnelle is the tendency to view things through the lens of one’s own professional skills or culture. You can exploit it when writing for trade magazines or niche websites – since no-one else is reading, go ahead and trot out the jargon, prejudices and petty concerns that your audience love, and generate instant rapport. (Obviously, you need to be able to do this convincingly, and sound like an ‘insider’, or it will backfire badly.)

Bandwagon theory

This is the tendency to jump on the bandwagon and do what others are doing. I’ve already covered it in my piece on social proof.

Illusion of control

We believe that we can control, or at least influence, outcomes that we clearly cannot. Most superstitions are rooted in this belief, but more ‘sophisticated’ systems of thought such as technical analysis (using charts to predict share price movements) are arguably manifestations of the same thing.

Many distress purchases appeal to the illusion of control. Insurance, for example, is often predicated on the idea that the dark, chaotic world out there can be kept at bay for an affordable monthly payment. Some cosmetic treatments also encourage us to change things that, deep down, we know we can’t.

When creating display advertisements for newspapers or paper directories, many firms try to cram as much content into a limited space as possible, so the reader will definitely get all the information they need. But when the ad appears on the page, it’s crammed in next to 15 or 20 similar ads, and the combined effect is chaotic. (Often, the ad that ‘wins’ these battles stands out with a spacious, simple design.)

In other words, marketing materials must be evaluated in context, not in isolation. And that’s equally true online.

As you plan your website, it’s natural to focus on the site itself. As the content is written in Word and the code developed on a test server, there’s a very definite boundary around the project. But this doesn’t reflect the way your site will eventually work. You’re creating an organism in the lab that must fend for itself in a challenging ecosystem.

Make sure you provide a suitable route for your website visitors

People sometimes plan sites as if the user magically arrives at the home page and proceeds in an orderly fashion to the ‘buy’ or ‘contact’ page. Of course, you should ensure that your site supports that ideal sequence. But in the real world, your site will slot into an online experience that encompasses multiple browsing sessions, searches, comparisons, visits and revisits. The user’s journey begins before they arrive, and continues after they leave. From search to sale could easily take months.

In this article, I’m going to look at optimising the four key stages in your customer’s online journey: finding, selecting, visiting and returning to your site.

The search

As Morpheus put it, ‘everything begins with choice’. Your user’s journey begins with your real home page – the first page of Google results for your key terms. Obviously, your site needs to appear on this page to figure in your user’s journey; unless you own a well-known brand, don’t flatter yourself that people will be making an effort to discover it on page two or lower.

First, you must identify some search terms that people use to find businesses like yours. Make sure you focus on the words your customers use (not the ones you like to use yourself). Use online tools like Wordtracker or Google’s keyword suggestion tool to take out the guesswork and home in on relevant terms you’ve got a good chance of owning. Competitor sites are another obvious place to look. (For more on choosing keywords, see this guide.)

Always remember that it’s far better to rank highly for less popular ‘niche’ terms (such as those that include place names) than it is to appear on page two or lower for high-traffic ‘generic’ terms. Research shows that almost 80% of searchers click on the first three natural results.

Pick your targets and cut your coat according to your cloth, making sure you can achieve your aims given the resources available. There’s very little point spending tons of time and money to effect a rise from, say, position 51 to position 19 – the impact on traffic will be negligible. A big, sustainable piece of a small pie is much better than a tiny, hard-to-defend slice of a huge one.

Limited resources is also the reason to focus solely on Google, which still accounts for the vast majority of search traffic (around 85%).

Even if you do appear in the first 10 natural results, you may want to grab more ‘share of voice’ (i.e. space on the screen) by placing PPC ads. It seems that some users (sole traders, in my own experience) like to click them, even with a good selection of natural results to go at. Set a tight budget and experiment!

The selection

To understand why I say Google is your real home page, consider how you go about researching a purchase in an area that’s unfamiliar to you. You’ll search, then click around a bit, unsure whether to go straight to a merchant, consult an information site or maybe browse a directory. And you’ll almost certainly backtrack to Google’s results at least once.

So your user’s first experience of your site won’t happen in a vacuum. You need to consider how your site stacks up against the other players on page one.

Ideally, you’re looking for your site to be among:

• irrelevant sites from which users will ‘bounce’ immediately
• relevant but inferior sites that won’t retain or convert ‘your’ traffic (you might even be content to rank below them, if you’re confident enough of your advantage)
• relevant but neutral sites such as Wikipedia that neither help nor hinder your chances of conversion (except insofar as they distract your customer)
• directories, comparison sites or aggregators where your site features prominently (i.e. on the first or second page reached from your search)
• articles placed by you that inform the user about your product, service or expertise and lead them back to your site (this is a big reason why people do article marketing).

Of course, you’ll rarely be able to achieve this type of line-up, except for on the nichest of niche searches. But it’s always worth considering which shops, libraries or malls are ‘next door’ to you in the online ‘high street’. If you’re up against sites that are equal or superior to yours (in your judgement), consider what you can add – a special offer, a unique product, service or bundle, etc – to bring some differentiation.

You may find that pages from your site other than your home page appear in search results, whether by accident or design. If so, make sure they can function reasonably well as ‘landing’ (arrival) pages. There’s no need to replicate ‘home page’-style text, which will be disorientating to those following an orthodox route through the site. Just ensure the page makes sense when read in isolation (i.e. without the home page to introduce it) and provides an easy way to reach the home page (one click).

The visit

Website usability is a huge topic, so I’ll restrict myself to the fundamentals.

• Bearing in mind what I’ve said about the hesitant, random nature of first-time searches, it’s clear that your home page must confirm clearly that visitors have reached the right place. Every relevant visitor who bounces from your site is a resounding fail. A dull but informative positioning statement is just the ticket; add a jazzy slogan elsewhere if you must. In general, don’t try too hard to grab attention; with an actively searching audience, you already have it.
• Remember that people won’t visit every page, and will only skim-read the pages they do visit. Working on web text in Word subtly instils the concept of ‘website as novel’, with the assumption of users reading from start to finish. Again, look to your own experience for what really happens. If there’s something people need to see (e.g. your phone number), include it on as many pages as necessary. Repeat key points as required.
• Make navigation crystal clear, ideally without rollovers. Use simple words that explain precisely what lies behind each link. Don’t try to be clever or different, the risk is too great. Group links thematically if you’ve got lots of them.
• For the main text, don’t let a designer bully you into having anything other than big, legible black letters on a white background. Ever seen a book with white text on orange pages? Well then.
• Make it easy for users to see what their next step should be. Include clear, eye-catching calls to action on every ‘business’ page. You can omit them on ‘background’ pages that just provide information.
• In general, don’t do anything to irritate, slow down or otherwise impede the user. Sounds obvious? You’d think so, but people are still building sites in Flash, which usually does all three.

The return

So far, so good. You’ve guided the user from search to conversion as well as you possibly can. But just as their journey doesn’t begin with your site, it doesn’t end there either. Many decisions to purchase are arrived at gradually, via a hermeneutic loop where the user acquires knowledge and confidence iteratively. So you need to facilitate their return to your site at a later time.

• Try to ensure your HTML page titles, so critical for SEO, also make sense (and ideally stand out) when viewed in a list of bookmarks. Choose a favicon that stands out next to those of competitor sites that users are likely to visit and bookmark alongside yours.
• Create pages aimed at different user groups, so there’s a reason for them to bookmark a ‘deep link’ once they’re within the site.
• Offer added-value content such as research or industry analysis that people will want to return to.
• Create regularly updated features such as a blog, ensuring an RSS feed is available. Resist the temptation to sell through your blog – just offer content, and they will come.

However, all these inducements are really just trimming and trappings. A well-structured, easy-to-use site is an incentive to return in itself. By contrast, a self-conscious, over-designed site may impress the user first time round, but simply irritate them during subsequent visits – the very time it should be working hardest to close the sale.

So there you have it – some useful ideas (I hope) for optimising the many steps that make up your user’s online journey.

When we use metaphors (or similes), we compare one thing to another so we can understand or explain it better. We do this to explain it, to understand it or sometimes just to make our language more colourful.

Life’s but a shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more.

Here, the core of the metaphor is the equation ‘life=theatre’, with the secondary meaning ‘people=actors’. In these lines, Shakespeare is explicitly saying that our lives are as brief and futile as a play – a meaningless shadow rather than anything real. Implicitly, he’s also saying that we have little control over our destinies, like actors whose lines are written down for them. Once the parallel is drawn, a metaphor opens up a range of ways to think about something in a new way.

Metaphors in NLP

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) takes language seriously, acknowledging that it shapes the way we think. NLP practitioners pay close attention to the words people choose. By really listening to what people say, we can learn about the way they see themselves or the world.

To an NLP practitioner, metaphors are interesting because of their limits. They illuminate some truths while obscuring others; in NLP terminology, there are things they ‘allow’ and things they ‘disallow’.

For example, we might say that a trusted friend is ‘a rock’. Obviously, there are lots of unintended literal meanings: our friend probably isn’t thousands of years old, rough to the touch or permanently rooted to the spot. When we liken them to a rock, we’re saying that they’re solid and reliable.

However, they are human, so their moods and opinions change. Since rocks don’t change, our metaphor obscures this aspect of their personality, locking them into an idea of stolidity that may be limiting (for us, or for them). This highlights the importance of ‘stepping out’ of metaphors when they are no longer useful.

Liquid engineering

Over 35? This might take you back a bit (click to watch the advert)

A good example of a strong metaphor in copywriting is the slogan used for Castrol GTX in the 1980s: ‘liquid engineering’. In just two words, it transformed an everyday, almost commodity product into something essential and sophisticated.

Copywriting metaphors like this derive their power from two sources: imagery and emotion. In general, people find it easy to grasp concrete images, and harder to understand abstract concepts. Moreover, they respond more strongly when their hearts are appealed to, rather than just their minds. ‘Liquid engineering’ equates Castrol’s oil (an inanimate object) with attentive, skilful human engineers, suggesting that it provides a similar level of care, while appealing to the customer’s desire to care for their engine and safeguard their investment.

Leaky umbrella

Castrol’s metaphor was apposite, elegant and memorable – a brilliant piece of copywriting. But it’s very easy to get drawn into using a metaphor for its own sake, or pressing one into service that isn’t quite suited to the job at hand. The following is the text of a magazine advert currently being used by a leading UK insurer:

Would you buy an umbrella, if it didn’t keep you dry?
Neither would we. So why should you pay for an insurance policy that won’t keep you properly covered? Unlike 8 out of 10 standard home insurance policies we include cover for your belongings if they are accidentally damaged or lost – as standard.

The text is accompanied by a picture of an umbrella, highlighting one of the key benefits of metaphors in marketing – they give you a handy hook to hang your imagery on when none is otherwise available. (Services are often hard to depict – it’s even worse in B2B marketing.)

Although ‘insurance=umbrella’ seems promising as a metaphor (if unoriginal), here it actually muddies the meaning rather than clarifying it. Have you ever had, or bought, an umbrella that didn’t keep you dry? How would you know that an umbrella wouldn’t keep you dry, before you bought it?

The umbrella is an everyday item, but the situation described is artificial and not one that readers will immediately recognise from their lives. As a result, the metaphor won’t have the sensual, concrete force that drives emotional impact.

Stop clevering off

Instead of providing a useful stepping-stone between something familiar and a new concept, the headline metaphor in this example is adding a cognitive barrier between reader and benefit – and therefore putting obstacles in the way of a sale. The headline is literally a riddle, and if you ask your reader to solve riddles you run the risk of them simply walking away.

Since the core benefit is easy enough to understand for anyone who’s ever bought home insurance (which is almost everybody), a better headline might be:

With [Insurer], cover for damage and loss come as standard.

Or, for a bit more spice:

What’s extra for others is standard for us: damage and loss cover included with every home insurance policy.

Of course, you wouldn’t be able to include a nice picture of an umbrella, but you would have a headline that would actually generate interest.

It’s well known that headlines with benefits outpull those without. So if you’ve got a benefit that’s easy to communicate, it should always lead your copy. If you want to connect with readers, resist the tendency for what my granny used to call ‘clevering off’.

Making metaphors work

Here are a few pointers for making metaphors work in copywriting.

• Use sparingly. Only use metaphors when they’re needed: to clarify points that would otherwise be difficult to explain or understand, to communicate a benefit or to add emotional or persuasive impact. Don’t use them for their own sake. 
• Choose carefully. The right comparison can illuminate a key point like a ray of sunlight breaking through the clouds. But the wrong one can quickly lead you into deep water. Be sure your metaphor is appropriate.
• Dig deeper. Sometimes, metaphors have layers of meaning that you might not want. Consider what your metaphor really says about the product, service or company you’re promoting.
• Less is more. Metaphors are like tissues. At the moment you need them, they’re indispensable. But if you try to get too much use out of them, as I’m doing here, you’ll end up in a mess. In other words, most metaphors support just one or two strong points; after that, they should be dropped.
• Don’t mix it up. ‘Let’s run that idea up the flagpole and see if it holds water.’ ‘We weren’t on the same page because they were dancing to a different beat.’ Adding metaphors together doesn’t concentrate meaning; it dilutes it. Give your metaphors room to breathe, so your reader can absorb each one fully before you hit them with the next. If they’re too close, or if they overlap, the result is ludicrous. 

Weasel words are used to plant an idea in readers’ minds that is bigger than the actual claim being made. Working from vague, indeterminate facts (or no facts at all), you can generate perceptions that may be completely at odds with reality, without making a definite, absolute or concrete claim that could be open to challenge. 

But should you do it? I’ve already made clear my own views on honesty in marketing. But needs must when the devil dances. Whether you use these techniques is up to you!

‘Help to’

In conjunction with ‘can’ (see below), ‘help to’ positions your product or service as part of the solution to a problem without taking sole credit. For example:

Crunchaflakes can help to reduce weight as part of a calorie-controlled diet

Of course they can. Any food can. With the calorie-controlled approach, it’s simply a question of adding up the calories and keeping below a set target. The claim is very carefully delineated and hedged about, and is neither distinctive nor remarkable. But it lodges the idea of weight loss in the reader’s mind.

‘Can’ and ‘could’

Use ‘can’ and ‘could’ for indefinite claims that you want to sound definite. For example:

While traditional fan heaters have an average lifetime of 10–15 years, the RoomHeater 32 can keep on pumping out heat for decades.

Indeed it can, if used relatively sparingly. If used incessantly, its lifetime would be much shorter. Caveat emptor!

Hundreds and thousands

Look again at the example above. What period does ‘decades’ actually denote? Dunno, but it sounds like ages – just as words like ‘dozens’, ‘hundreds’ and ‘thousands’ sound like big quantities.

Strictly speaking, 101 is ‘hundreds’ – it’s 1.01 hundreds, which is more than one and therefore plural. If you’re uncomfortable with that, stick to 200 and above, which is definitely more than one hundred. ‘Hundreds’ sounds bigger than ‘217’.

Willy was weary of being regarded as devious, purely on the basis of his species

Fractions

Closely related is the word ‘fraction’, as in ‘now available at a fraction of the original price’. 99/100ths is a fraction, but your audience will think of the ones they learned at school, like 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4, which will make them think you’re offering a huge discount.

Relative improvement

Whiter teeth. Improved search engine rankings. Increased sales. Shinier hair. Whatever it is you’re offering to do, make it relative and unquantified, not absolute and specific. That way, even the tiniest improvement fulfils the promise.

Yes, of course my copywriting will increase your sales. I guarantee it. By up to 50%.

‘Up to’

‘Up to’ or ‘as much as’ are used when you want to quote a numerical or statistical claim, but can only substantiate it within a certain range.

For example, you might be marketing a service that gets people tax rebates. Let’s say that on average, people get rebates of around 10% of their bills, but some have received 50%. Instead of quoting the average, or the range, you can say ‘customers have received rebates of up to 50%’.

All you’re really saying is that the rebate is in the range 0%–50%, but it’s the upper number that will stick in people’s minds. Very few will infer the corollary, which is ‘some customers got nothing’.

Note that the ‘up to’ number must be honest: it may be unusual or exceptional, but it must be achievable.

‘Over’ and ‘more than’

Closely related to ‘up to’, ‘over’ and ‘more than’ make numbers sound larger than they are. For example, ‘over 50%’ sounds bigger than ‘51%’. When given a vague numerical range, people tend to overestimate. (If you want them to underestimate, use ‘under’ or ‘less than’.)

Watch out for using both ‘up to’ and ‘more’ together, which results in nonsense:

Save up to £50 or more!

Here, the £50 is neither a minimum or a maximum, just an arbitrary point in a completely undefined range. Although the audience may latch on to the £50, blurring the meaning twice means more confusion rather than more impact.

‘As much as’ and ‘as little as’

For a rhetorical twist, use ‘as much as’ or ‘as little as’ to imply that the figure you’re quoting is particularly high or low. For example:

The iPhone is now available for as little as £35 per month.

This suggests that £35 is low, but with no frame of reference to substantiate the claim.

Reported beliefs

Tom Albrighton is now regarded as the best copywriter in the UK.

Sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? But who’s doing the regarding? Charles Saatchi, or my mum?

The use of the passive case, which omits the subject of the verb, allows you to say something is being done without specifying who’s doing it. With verbs such as ‘thought’ or ‘believed’, you can put out a claim that may be completely unsubstantiated, simply by saying that someone thinks it’s true.

You can also use abstract nouns such as ‘concerns’ (usually ‘growing’), ‘speculation’ (often ‘intense’ due to being ‘fuelled’) or ‘allegation’ (probably ‘fresh’) to generate a sense that something’s cooking without naming the chef.

This ploy is very commonly used in political journalism, often to report an ‘off the record’ sentiment from a genuine source. A typical sentence might begin ‘Critics of the Prime Minister now believe…’.

Consider the following quote from this Guardian story, which brings all the techniques together in one sentence:

The disclosures will fuel growing concern that the prince is continuing to interfere in political matters when many believe he should remain neutral if he wishes to become king.

Who is concerned, and why will the disclosures fuel their concerns? Who are the ‘many’ who believe Charles should remain neutral? What is the factual basis for saying that he might not succeed to the throne, or that his succession is conditional on his behaviour? What, actually, is being said here?

Nothing. But it sounds good. 

Rhetorical reinforcement

Use words such as ‘clearly’, ‘surely’, ‘self-evidently’ to make a premise sound like a conclusion. These rhetorical words add weight to a statement that may have no basis in fact.

Surely the recession is now drawing to a close?

It may be, or it may not – you haven’t actually said either way, but readers will think you have.

Unprovable superlatives

The CDs entitled ‘The best rock album in the world… ever!’ and similar highlighted the useful fact that superlatives are unprovable.

Suppose you start describing your firm as a ‘leading local widget maker’. Are you including firms who make other things as well as widgets? Or just widget specialists? Or just local widget specialists?

What’s more, how do you define ‘leading’? Do you sell most widgets? Make most money from widgets? Or just make the best widgets? Or are you just one of the best at making widgets? It really doesn’t matter, because the only thing readers will remember is ‘leading’. They won’t be querying your definition.

If you’re still unsure about your claim, dilute it with ‘regarded as’ or something similar, or position yourself as ‘one of the leading…’. Does that mean one of the top 10? The top 100? The top 1000?

Or you could copy Carlsberg, whose addition of ‘probably’ to ‘the best lager in the world’ allowed them to float the most outrageous marketing claim of all (‘best in world’) without actually making it.

If you deliver services (B2B or B2C) that are tailored rather than ‘off the shelf’, case studies are a great way to showcase your skills, experience and approach to projects. They work equally well for freelances, sole traders, SMEs and large corporates, giving potential clients a chance to see how your way of working actually pans out in practice, and what it could do for them. They also function as indirect recommendations, since the clients mentioned are giving their tacit endorsement.

Case study structure

The best case studies tell a story with a distinct beginning, middle and end. The beginning is the client’s need, the middle is what you did for them, and the end is how they benefited. In my view, every case study should follow this chronological approach, using some or all of the following sections in the order listed (though not necessarily with these headings):

• Background: some general information about the client
• Origins: how they found or approached you
• Requirement: the client’s needs, situation or problems at the time
• Approach: what you did that addressed their need, or solved their problems
• Results: the outcomes of your work, at a practical level
• Benefits: how the client benefited as a result of your work.

Medium and length

Case studies can be used almost anywhere: in brochures, as standalone printed handouts or folder inserts, on websites or in presentations. They may also form the basis for press releases. However, the length should be appropriate for the medium and format chosen.  

A presentation version should be four or five slides at most, with three or four bullet points per slide. Each slide should cover a stage of the story as described above. If you can’t say what’s needed within those limits, choose a different medium. Don’t shoehorn narrative into PowerPoint – it’ll never get read.

A printed version might go onto a double-sided A4 sheet, in which case allow 500 words per side max (10pt text with some headings and illustrations).

If your case study is to be published online, you need 500 words per page absolute max; something closer to 150 is far more likely to be read. You can always do a concise web-page version and link to a longer PDF (designed exactly like a printed version, on A4) that people can download.

Length does not equal value, so don’t add content for its own sake. But conversely, don’t fall into the trap of cutting everything to the bone in the belief that it will maximise interest. Some people do still like to read, and it’s only in the details that the quality and value of what you do can be fully substantiated.

Case study content

• Describe all the key facts, even those you feel are obvious. Your story needs to flow logically and make sense even to those not paying close attention.
• Don’t get too bogged down in ‘what you did’. The point is the benefits delivered rather than the actions taken. If you want to wax lyrical about your craft, your blog is the place.
• Don’t use industry jargon – or, if you do, define each term you use.
• Give personal or business context that shows readers why the service you delivered was so important, or made such a difference. For example: ‘Our photographs were used in the key Christmas brochure, which is distributed to over 10,000 recipients.’
• Include quantitative (numerical) benefits wherever possible: money or time saved, profit made or anything else that can be measured.
• The sanity check for case study content is: ‘if I were a potential client or customer, would this point interest me?’ If the answer’s ‘no’, cut it. Don’t let B2B case studies turn into a love-in about the ‘relationship’ – it’s great that everybody got on well, but we need to see some concrete benefits too. 

Quotes in case studies

Direct quotes from the client add both weight and colour to a case study. It’s always better to report people’s actual words, instead of you saying how happy they were. Also, people have their unique ways of expressing themselves, and their voice will bring a welcome change of tone to the content of the case study.

For B2B, you should seek quotes from the highest level of the organisation you can, focusing on the strategic, high-level benefits that your service realised or enabled, rather than the practical details of how it was delivered (which you can easily describe yourself).

Networking and directory sites such as LinkedIn and FreeIndex allow you to solicit and display client testimonials on your profile page. (You can also integrate FreeIndex comments into your own site, as I’ve done here.) If people have written enough words, you could use them in your case study.

You could also solicit quotes by email. If you want detailed answers in a range of areas, you could create a list of questions for your client to answer. Ask questions beginning ‘how’ and ‘what’, which invite the most expansive, expressive responses (‘how did the service benefit your business?’).

However, there’s still a risk of receiving telegraphic or even one-word answers, which can be embarassing if you can’t use them. So interview your contact if you can. Prepare a list of questions, and send it in advance, but arrange a time to talk on the phone and record the conversation. That way you can explore the client’s answers, get more detail and prompt them if they’re not very forthcoming.

Case study presentation

• Use ‘crossheads’ (subheadings) so people can skim-read the case study or ‘cut to the chase’ if they wish. Your aim should be to provide detail for those who want it, without obliging casual readers to plough through everything.
• A ‘standfirst’ (bold paragraph at the start) that sums up the whole story, including the key benefits delivered, makes for a punchy opening. Look at magazines for examples.
• Another good tactic is ‘pulling out’ key content (such as juicy client quotes, see below) into highlighted boxes beside the text, or interspersed within it. Again, magazines will show you how.
• Pictures are a great idea. Client logos, portraits of people, pictures of what you did – anything that’s specific to the case study will add significant value and interest. Try to avoid bland royalty-free photos, since the incongruence between the specifics of the narrative and the general, irrelevant imagery will be jarring. Remember, your case study is a story – and pictures included in stories should always reflect the narrative. 

Finally, it goes without saying that working with a professional copywriter – ideally one with experience of interviewing, who can talk to your clients – is the best way to get a really effective case study.

What is a call to action?

A call to action is a short piece of text (usually one or two sentences) in an advertisement or marketing communication that encourages the reader to take a particular course of action – buy, donate, make contact and so on.

Calls to action guide the audience towards a real-world action, so they don’t turn the page, click through to another site or just carry on browsing your material aimlessly. They set a boundary on readers’ ‘information gathering’ experience, encouraging them to move into the ‘doing’ phase.

The call to action is one of the most important ‘take-aways’ for the audience. If there’s one thing the copywriter wants the audience to read and internalise (after the headline), it’s the call to action.

Where are calls to action used?

Calls to action should be included in almost every piece of marketing, whether focused at businesses or consumers. Examples of where they might appear are:

• In brochures: on the back page, or interspersed within the text
• On websites: on every ‘selling’ page, and perhaps also on a ‘contact us’ page (possibly not on ‘more information’ pages)
• In direct mail sales letters or marketing emails: towards the end, before the sign-off, and perhaps repeated in a P.S.

Often, a call to action will be highlighted by being boxed out, emboldened or otherwise ‘biggened up’.

Calls to action are not used in pure ‘brand-building’ marketing, where the only aim is to make the audience remember the brand.

Define your desired customer response

Before you can create a call to action, you must know your desired customer response (DCR). What do you want the reader to do once they’ve read your message? Whatever your DCR is, it should be all of the following:

• Clear. A ten-year-old should be able to understand what you’re asking them to do.
• Simple. A DCR should consist of a single step. You may want people to go to a website and buy, but the first step is just to get them there – it’s the website’s job to convert traffic to sales.
• Specific. A DCR should make it clear exactly what the audience should do, in concrete terms: fill out a form, visit a shop, make a phone call, go to a website and so on.

Create a basic call to action

At its simplest, a call to action is a single sentence that tells the reader to do something, using the imperative tense:

Call us now to claim your FREE sample copy of Lawnmower World.

Note the key characteristics of the basic call to action:

• It communicates the DCR, preserving its three key attributes (clear, simple and specific).
• It links the DCR with a benefit for the reader (in this case, a free magazine). This is essential. A call to action offers a quid pro quo. ‘If you do this,’ we’re saying to the reader, ‘you’ll get that.’ The benefit need not be concrete, but there must be something in it for the customer, even if it’s only useful information on a product.
• It commands the reader directly, with no equivocation. The impact can be softened with ‘please’, but this is rarely necessary. People generally avoid the imperative in conversation, but commands aren’t always confrontational and may often be welcomed or reassuring. (For example: ‘Sit down, have a coffee and let me take care of it.’)
• It tells the reader when to act (‘now’) instead of leaving the timeframe open-ended.

The simple ‘sanity check’ for calls to action is to read them through and ask yourself whether you’d be happy if the reader did exactly what you’re asking, no more and no less.

It’s OK to vary the content of your call to action (for example, to add variety if it appears on more than one page in your site), but the message (i.e. the underlying DCR) should always be the same.

Add the power of persuasion

Sometimes, it’s not enough just to tell people what to do. They need to know why they should do it. To address this need, you can use principles of persuasion to add more power to your call to action.

There are a number of proven ways to persuade readers to act, which I’ve covered elsewhere, so here are some examples with links through to posts that will explain the persuasive principle that drives them. 

Thousands of businesses have already unlocked huge productivity gains by switching to BookKeeper. Call us to discover how you could join them. (Social proof: do as others are doing.)

Are you tired of scrubbing off limescale? Pick up a FREE trial pack of ScaleAway at your local store and say goodbye to it for ever. (Consistency: taking the desired action is consistent with the response to the question being asked.)

We all know how hard it is to find presents that friends and family will really love. So make Christmas easier this year at greatgifts.com. (Liking: alluding to a rapport or shared interest with the reader.)

Doctors recommend eating at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. Call today to order your regular organic box from Willow Farm and make sure you have delicious fresh produce ready to eat, every day. (Authority: the opinion of a reputable source supports the DCR.)

Embedded commands

In NLP, embedded commands are sentences embedded within longer sentences that act as cues on the unconscious level. In theory, they direct the reader towards the DCR by subliminally planting an idea in their mind.

The great thing about embedded commands is that they can be scattered throughout the text without interrupting the flow or irritating the reader (if you have a good enough copywriter, that is).

Here are a few examples, with the embedded command in bold:

When you choose our service, you’re tapping into decades of expertise.

How good would it feel to book a short break right now?

You can call our order hotline 7 days a week.

Think about the benefits that will be realised for your business when you work with a professional accountant.

Most customers who buy in bulk from us make big savings.

You don’t even need to visit your nearest branch – we’re also available online and by phone.

It won’t always be possible to include the DCR explicitly in an embedded command. Instead, the embedded commands can ‘soften up’ the reader by gently introducing the general theme of the DCR, before you hit them with the direct call to action at the end.

A few years ago, when I was writing a large number company profiles based on telephone conversations with senior managers, I invested in a professional device for recording them. The device simply monitors both sides of the conversation on my phone and passes the result as an audio signal to my computer. I can record my phone conversations at the drop of a hat and save them as MP3s. (Here’s a link to the THAT-2, which I strongly recommend. It’s not cheap, but the less expensive solutions are not much good in my experience.)

The Conversation (1974): Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) listens in

I soon realised that recording calls was a great way to preserve all sorts of conversations, such as those with clients. Our recollections of conversations are often completely wrong, or at least incomplete. If I’m talking through a brief with a client on the phone, making a recording helps to ensure that my first draft will be a lot closer to their expectations.

Often, it’s only on a second listen that I fully understand the points the other person was trying to make. At the time, I realise, I was too busy thinking of what to say in reply. When you have a few years’ experience as a copywriter on the clock, it’s easy to jump to a premature conclusion about what a client wants. Careful, ‘active’ listening is the antidote to this.

Taking notes and maintaining a conversation is difficult, while asking the other person to wait while you scribble is just embarrassing. With a recorder, you can just relax and chat naturally, which puts the other person at their ease.

Also, you record their phrasing with total precision, which does help when capturing their personality in writing. I have got some of the best results – and the most positive client responses – by simply transcribing what the client said. There’s no need to overcomplicate things or add superfluous craft: the client may already have the right words, but lack the confidence to use them.

Often, it’s helpful to repeat important points back to your interlocutor, with your own phrasing. This reassures the other person that you’ve understood what they’re saying. It’s also a great way to capture potentially useful phrases or analogies that occur to you during the conversation. Simply by saying them out loud, you ensure that you’ll have a permanent record of them.

Finally, note that it’s illegal to record telephone conversations without permission in the UK (and possibly elsewhere). I normally start recording, then immediately ask the other person if it’s OK, so that the recording itself includes them giving permission.

1. Take aim before you fire

When words won’t come, it can be because you’re not sure quite what you’re trying to achieve. So instead of writing the actual text, try writing yourself a brief. Set out the purpose of the text, who it’s for, how long it should be, what the tone should be and so on. In particular, think about what you want the audience to do, think or feel when they read it. Even if you’ve been given a brief, there’s almost certainly more you can add to it.

Clarifying exactly what you’re trying to do often gets the words flowing. Or it may be that the content you put into the brief can be recycled into the actual content you use. Either way, you’ve made a start on shaping your ideas without the pressure of writing the thing itself.

2. Don’t start at the beginning

The opening sentences of a piece of writing can be the hardest by far. The stakes are high: you’re looking to summarise your message, get attention and encourage people to read on. But you’ll find it far easier to write the beginning once you’ve completed the rest of the text, so don’t worry about it in the early stages.

If there’s a part of the text that you feel you could write now, go ahead and write it. Sometimes, ideas for later sections of the piece will keep popping into your mind and the only way to get rid of them is to write them down. There’s no need to write the whole thing in order, and the task will seem easier once you’ve made a start.

Writer's block can be frustrating, but there are plenty of ways to break through it

3. Take five

Don’t be too hard on yourself. As the saying goes, ‘if you’re in a hole, stop digging’. If you try too hard to write when it’s just not happening, you’ll just produce something inferior that will make you feel even worse. Even in the face of a looming deadline, it’s often worth taking a few minutes to relax and take time out.

What you do in your break is up to you – you might want to have a drink or a snack, go for a short walk, watch TV, listen to music or even meditate. Choose something you enjoy and give yourself enough time to move into a noticeably different frame of mind before you return to your writing. If taking a break is difficult (because you’re at work, say), try moving to an undemanding or repetitive task for a few minutes, like filing or tidying your desk.

4. Sleep on it

Even more powerful than a daytime break is a night’s sleep. Sleeping can have a dramatic impact on your ability to get your thoughts together. Most people find there’s a definite limit on the number of words they can write (or rewrite, or edit) in a single day. The limit can vary from day to day, from two or three thousand when you’re ‘in the zone’ right down to zero. But you know when you’ve reached it and, if you have, don’t push it. Instead, turn in and let your unconscious mind loose on the problem. You might be surprised at how easily the words flow in the morning.

5. Change venue

When you can’t write, your office can feel like a prison cell. It’s hard to have ideas in that kind of atmosphere. So break the spell by simply going somewhere else. Grab a notebook and pen and head off to the countryside, the park, the beach or just a different room. If the words still don’t flow, designate your time away from the desk as a break.

6. Remove distractions

If you’re having a break, have a break. But if you’re writing, write. If you’re using a computer, that means working in a single application, probably Word. In other words, you can close your web browser, email client, instant messenger and anything else that’s likely to break the spell of your concentration. Consider disconnecting or at least ignoring the phone – a call that turns into an hour-long chat will utterly derail your train of thought. It can help to tidy your desk or workspace too, so you feel fully focused on the task at hand.

7. Open the floodgates

It’s almost impossible to get a piece of text right first time. People who write a lot know this, so they just put something – anything – down on paper and then work it into shape like a lump of clay on a potter’s wheel. They know that nobody will ever see their first thoughts, so they just get in there and write. But people who write less, or who rarely write for an audience, can fall prey to ‘stage fright’ – as soon as they write something, they worry that it’s not good enough and delete it, putting themselves back at square one again.

If this is your problem, remind yourself that nobody needs to see your writing until you’re ready. So just let everything flow out – whatever occurs to you. Don’t worry about accuracy, repetition or even relevance – just get something down on paper.

8. Free associate

Sometimes your mind can get stuck in a rut, going over and over the same old ground without turning up anything new. The worry of having to meet a deadline can make this worse. Give your brain a shake by introducing random factors into the thought process. Pick something completely off the wall, and start relating it to your subject. For example, if you’re writing about a product, try comparing it to a sausage, or a monkey, or a lawnmower. This can open up unexpected new perspectives – or, at the very least, lighten up your mood.

9. Get healthy

Many of us work as if our bodies are just machines to keep our minds going – shovelling in any old food as fuel and overdriving the engine with coffee. But the body and the mind are two sides of the same coin. If you treat your body badly, you can’t expect your mind to deliver peak performance.

Caffeine enhances our ability to perform repetitive or mechanical tasks, but tends to impede more creative or logical functions. Lay off the latté and see if that helps – at least until you’ve got a few words down on the page. Avoid eating anything too heavy that will make you feel dull or sleepy, or sugary foods that will give you a rush followed by a sharp fall in energy and mood.

Exercising before starting work can be hugely beneficial. While people’s experiences differ, most find that exercise improves alertness, relaxation and mood (because it releases ‘happy chemicals’ called endorphins into our system). You might also find that new ideas occur to you while you’re exercising. Even a brisk walk round the block can make a difference.

10. Reach out

Finally, if you’re really stuck, don’t suffer in silence. If you can, talk to someone who understands your subject and see if they suggest anything useful. If you’re working for a client, don’t be embarrassed to phone them for more guidance on how to approach the topic. As long as your questions are to the point, they’ll probably be glad to lend a hand (and impressed at your attention to detail). And if you’re not in a position to get subject-specific help from anyone, phone a friend – sometimes, just talking through your problems can take the pressure off and give you the motivation to get going again.

It is not daily increase but daily decrease; hack away the unessential… the height of cultivation always runs to simplicity. (Attributed to Bruce Lee)

Writing is hard. But cutting is harder. When you’ve sweated for hours – or days – to get your thoughts down on paper, the pain of deleting your precious words again can be intense. But it’s also essential.

What is the ideal length for a piece of copy? My suggestion would be ‘shorter than you think’, particularly if you know the subject well or it’s close to your heart. Whatever you’re working on – report, news article, marketing text, ad headline – there’s nearly always scope to cut without harming the message. And it’s nearly always the right move too: people rarely complain that things are too short. The key is to consider what the audience really needs to hear, as opposed to what you really want to say.

Bruce Lee had a lot to teach the copywriter

Interface Designer Mike Kuniavsky proposes six rules for web design, including ‘people hate to read’ and ‘people hate to scroll’. Although the web is essentially a text medium, it’s delivered through a format that’s hopeless for reading – a screen. We all know from our own experience how we really use the web – clicking and scrolling around at high speed, flitting between sites almost at random, only reading when we absolutely have to. So make sure you write online copy that suits these habits: make it as short as you possibly can.

Because it’s emotionally difficult to destroy your own text, I recommend saving a working version before you cut, or pasting bits you’ve cut into another document. That way you can go back to earlier versions or cut fragments later. You never will, but the backup gives you the courage to make bold cuts.

If in doubt, cut it out. Does the text still work? If the answer’s ‘yes’, you’ve got your new version.

If you’re working on something very short, like a company tagline, it’s a question of chipping away at the words until nothing further can be removed. For example, here are the last few iterations of the phrase I eventually chose to promote my own one-man company, ABC:

1. Is your message getting through to the people who matter most to your business?
2. Are you getting through to the people who matter most to your business?
3. Are you reaching the people who matter most to your business?
4. Are you reaching the people who matter most?
5. Are you reaching those who matter most?

The last few steps took several days of intermittent effort. It’s easy to turn out loads of words – it may seem counterintuitive, but shorter takes longer.

Getting the perfect phrasing is as much to do with subconscious thought as conscious effort. Often, a night’s sleep or a day away from the keyboard will allow the right solution to emerge, appearing in your mind or your notepad like it’s been there all along. And, in a way, it has – you just needed to ‘hack away the inessential’.