Great copy is just as important as great design, and copywriting is a skill that can often be overlooked when it comes to marketing. Here at Turn Key, we have a talented team of copywriters who spend their time sculpting the most striking straplines and perfect paragraphs to draw attention to our clients.

Last week, Turn Key’s Junior Art Director, Jac Morton, and Designer, Carl Holderness, ventured to Manchester to complete the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s Principles of Great Copywriting course to develop their expertise – here Jac describes the day and gives some helpful top tips…

On 19^th September, Carl and I embarked on a whirlwind tour of the world of copywriting. Covering everything from writing headlines for billboards to body copy tucked away at the bottom of a webpage, the day was action packed with lots of learnings to ingest.

The course itself was fantastic, our leader was energetic and his passion was infectious amongst the crowd. We learnt the basics of what makes good copy and saw first hand the damage that bad copy can do. Here’s a few top tips we picked up on the day:

The reader is king

Without a clear target audience, you are just putting words on a page! Always remember to write to your reader, not to yourself. Knowing and understanding your target audience is key, don’t just talk to them, engage them in conversation!

One style doesn’t fit all

A poster differs to a press release and a brochure differs to a blog – the way you write for different outlets and marketing communications needs to change. People read different media, differently and as such your tone of voice should be adapted.

Real English vs. English

Although we’d never encourage anyone to use bad grammar, you can play around with different levels of formality depending on who you’re talking to. If you’re writing for a younger audience, step away from your Oxford English Dictionary and engage with them through more conversational language and punctuation.

Don’t complicate things

Always write as clearly as possible, keeping in mind how words and phrases can be interpreted. Everyone loves a well-placed double entendre but when it comes to creative copywriting, things have to make sense to every possible reader.

Carl and I had a great day dipping our toes into the ocean of creative copywriting and we’re now ready to set sail and get stuck into some exciting briefs.