Are you writing in Go-Away-Green?

go away greenFirst let me explain what Go Away Green means. It’s the color Disney uses in its theme parks for any object or building they don’t want people to look at.

Garbage bins, fences, administrative buildings…stuff like that. They want your eyes focused on the rides, stores and scenery, not on the infrastructure.

The idea of Go Away Green is that it’s such a boring and unattractive color, your eyes just pass over it until they latch on to something more interesting.

The concept of Go Away Green is important to grasp when creating anything that is a combination of attraction + structure.

This certainly applies to web design and yes, also to writing and copywriting.

The “attraction” in what you write is the story you tell, the core of your message and the supporting information that surrounds it.

The “structure” of your writing represents all the words and sentences you use to set up the opening, create transitions throughout and wrap things up at the end.

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Why writing great headlines is like creating a soap opera.

writing great headlinesOne of the things you’ll notice about soap operas is how hard the writers work to let you know that the best part is yet to come.

For example, just before each commercial break the drama is built to a point of peak suspense…so you just have to sit through the commercials to find out what happens next.

The same devices are used at the end of each episode to make sure you tune in again next time. Will she run off with the pool cleaner? Did he survive the plunge off the cliff? Will she be found guilty and sent to jail? And so on.

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Monday Spark: If you believe in your plan, don’t give up.

don't give upI have a coaching client who, alongside his writing work, is working to launch a stand-alone business aimed at the boomer generation.

He’s excited by the business idea, because the information he wants to share is so important and timely. Give him a few minutes of your time, and you’ll be hooked.

As part of the plan to develop and launch his business he recently booked a meeting room for two evenings. We wanted to fill the seats and then run through his presentation.

He has back-end products, but his plan at this stage was simply to get his message in front of an audience and measure their response. It was a test run.

Once he had booked the room, which would seat about 30 people, he then ran an ad in his local paper. He ran it three times in the run-up to his event.

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When you write a web page, give it the “help a friend test”.

help a friend web copyThe help a friend test is a simple analogy. I have used it before, and so have others.

But this has been the foundation on which I have built every line of copy and content I have written over the past 30 years. It worked when I started out, and it still works now.

Here is the basic approach

Before you write any content or copy for a web page (or for any other medium), imagine the person who will be reading the page is actually sitting in front of you.

Let’s say it’s a friend of yours, and you’re having coffee together.

Your friend has a problem and wants to raise the topic with you because he or she knows you are something of an expert in that area.

So your friend asks you a question. For example, it might be, “Jack, I want to pay more into my retirement fund, but I still have some credit card debt to pay off. Which is more important…adding to my retirement fund or paying off the cards?”

Yes, your friend has a problem and is actively seeking advice and help.

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If reading your copy doesn’t feel effortless, write another draft.

writing drafts with typewriter“The opening is weak.”

I don’t know how many times I have said that to copywriters when I look at their final drafts. Maybe 100 times. Probably more.

I get to see a lot of first drafts and final drafts. People ask for my feedback. And in 90% of cases I say, “The opening is weak.”

A very few copywriters write terrific leads or openings. Most do a mediocre job. Some copywriters, while doing a great job on every other aspect of a sales message, write a horrible first few sentences.

This is a problem, because if your first few sentences are weak, most of your readers will toss your sales letter or hit the back button before they even get to the good stuff.

So why does this happen? Why do copywriters have so much trouble with those first few sentences?

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Monday Spark: Eating chocolate makes you smarter!

eating chocolate makes you smartI do love to be the bearer of good news.

Anyway, it’s official. Chocolate makes you smarter. It really does.

In a recent research study, just published by The New England Journal of Medicine, it was shown that there is a direct correlation between a country’s chocolate consumption and the number of Nobel prize winners it produces.

That’s right. The more chocolate you eat, the more likely you are to become a Nobel laureate.

Here is a quote for you, from the study.

“The principal finding of this study is a surprisingly powerful correlation between chocolate intake per capita and the number of Nobel laureates in various countries. Of course, a correlation between X and Y does not prove causation but indicates that either X influences Y, Y influences X, or X and Y are influenced by a common underlying mechanism.”

Never mind the X and Y stuff. Just focus on the chocolate.

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