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FREELANCE UX COPYWRITER   B-TO-B WITH DM THINKING AND CONSUMER FLAIR Contact

     
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From a freelance copywriter

Irreverent thoughts about
Interactive Copywriting

When people say "interactive copywriter," they're usually referring to online work. Frankly, I think that's selling both online and offline writing a little short, particularly if you're a marketer. Because just being online doesn't make it "interactive." Even social media isn't necessarily interactive. And offline copy needs to be interactive, too.

True, successfully writing for the Web requires certain things. It takes a different tone than you find in a lot of other marketing media. Not pushy, no hype. Friendly, helpful and honest. Trustworthy. It has certain readability requirements, and you should modify your style manual to aid scannability. Some say the pages also have to be shorter, or in bite-size bits (although I'd sometimes dispute that). It demands content that's truly valuable to the visitor. It takes sensible organization. And the text can't just contain links. It has to motivate the reader to use them.

But that's true of any copy-intensive medium. Good online copy is "interactive" because it needs to interact with the reader. Ditto for offline. To be good, marketing copy always needs to be valuable to the reader, personal, and motivating.

Otherwise, it's bad copy, regardless of the medium.

Granted, online is less tolerant of bad copy, for several reasons.

• One: The reader immediately has someplace else to go if confused, offended or bored. He or she can even hop directly to the competition. A printed brochure isn't quite so vulnerable.

• Two: The reader is more personally involved. More likely to feel it viscerally if you waste his or her time.

• Three: Unlike reading magazines, people often visit websites to find very specific information. If the reader came from a search engine, and your site doesn't deliver what was promised there, that's 100% disappointment.

• Four: Conversely, you can't force your copy into the visitor's hands. Unlike other marketing media, distribution is not fully under your control. If the spiders don't like it, if fellow visitors don't like it, if it seems like jive for any reason at all, it won't even be seen, let alone read. How can you sell with strong, "selling" copy if nobody visits?

• Five: Online marketing communications offer such strong potential for converting interest into immediate action, that failure to interest and relate to the visitor seems an even more terrible waste.

So online, bad copy is risky, while offline you might get away with it. But if you've got a great copywriter, that's not an issue. Compare good to good. A good marketing copywriter (advertising copywriter, direct response writer, whatever your angle), with strong interest and an average amount of online browsing experience, can do an admirable job online or off.

Just don't try to scrape by with a mediocre one.

This isn't a new issue. For decades, most advertising agency creative directors have held that a print writer can learn to write for TV much more easily than a TV writer can learn print. The online/offline situation is arguably analogous -- a print writer may be able to cross over to the Web and email more easily than an Internet-only writer can move in the other direction.

I've been working on both sides for years.

I'd be happy to demonstrate. Or to dig right into your online content job. Please call 718-577-0005 during NYC business hours, or write me, and let's discuss how you might benefit by hiring a writer whose perspective is broader than some.

These pages are also web- and interactivity-related:

  • UX Writer. Is there any other kind?
  • Web Work
  • Writers and Websites
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Copywriting Services: a dozen ways I can help you

You can also interactively search my Samples.


For more details, e-mail me now.

X CLOSE UPDATE

UPDATE: Why online demands excellent copywriting ...

I wrote the underlying article – yipes! – more than 15 years ago. It's still online because its premise is still valid — whether the copy is digital media or traditional, it must interact with the reader, by being valuable, personal, and motivating. And, for several reasons, online is less tolerant of bad copy. (Close this update to read article)

Granted, we've reached a point where traditional networking and marketing techniques can't match the capabilities of some online technologies. These days, the Web isn't just a bunch of technologies; it has sculpted new social patterns.

Then, there's the more basic type of website interactivity that traditional media can't match — on the web, you can make pages more entertaining, helpful and sticky in many ways: Personalization. Games. Surveys. Dynamic pages. Demonstrations. Messaging. "Stories." Etc. The possibilities are as endless as the marketer's imagination.

But there's more to it than that.

Not every reader has had the same amount or type of online experience. While some online entities, like YouTube and Facebook, have virtually universal appeal, others (LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc.) serve limited cohorts, and people who don't get it may never care. Therefore, the user experience you give people demands "interactivity" in that sense, too.   MORE

(Will social networking and online marketing continue to grow? Certainly. Will all of the communities keep growing? No. Some will grow. Membership in others will just see users revolve. And we've seen many sites fail. Some change their business model to something less ambitious. Others, in "enhancing" themselves to have broader scope and/or a social angle have actually made their core service or interface cluttered and less usable. And enhanced web (and mobile) technologies and social media still aren't reaching plenty of people who are otherwise very much online.)

That brings us full-circle. Because, at a yet more basic level, the capabilities of any medium are expanded by using imagination to stimulate imagination. Involve the reader/visitor. That's the basis of all interactivity. This fundamental definition of "interactive" is its most important . . . and will always be current.

Randall Rensch, freelance copywriter
Contact me now.

To read about 5 important differences between websites and brochures, and why they both need copywriting excellence, click through to the original article.

X CLOSE UPDATE

Do you have a project, question, or suggestion in mind? Let's put our minds together. Contact me now.

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Randall Rensch, freelance UX copywriter   •   inquiryrensch.com   •   718-577-0005   •   8355 Austin St 4F, Kew Gardens, NY 11415 (New York City)

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