Conrad Winter Copywriter

My time-tested approach for coming up with lots of ideas in a short time frame.

You know, there as a time not too long ago, when clients would actually give you two weeks to come up with concepts for an ad. Yup. One ad, two weeks. These days, you’re lucky if you get two days to work on a banner ad or an e-blast.

I’m not complaining, like most, I’ve accepted the reality and learned to excel with these new parameters. So how do I come up with a ton of good ideas in a super short time frame – and more importantly, how can you?

It’s all about coming up with strategic buckets that guide your thoughts and speed your creative process. Here’s how it works:

1. Create strategic buckets. Think of all the key messages you could communicate. Write down every one that comes to mind. If your project is a B-to-B ad, your buckets might look like this: “saves you time,” “saves you money,” “we have great customer service,” “we’re experts,” and “we’ll make you look good.”
2. Get your buckets in order. Prioritize them.
3. Check your time. When’s your project due? How much time does that give you for ideation? 30 hours? 20 hours? 2 hours?
4. Decide how many you can conceivably do. Each bucket deserves at least 2 hours. On an ad or campaign, I try to spend at least 3 hours on a bucket, although sometimes I have as little as half an hour or as much as 10 hours.
5. Time to work. Develop ideas for one bucket at a time allotting a set amount of time for each one.
6. What about the “coming up with ideas part”? Your job is to find alternate ways of communicating the bucket’s idea. Try it from every angle you can think of. Don’t just do slight rewordings, try visual approaches, metaphors, let your mind go.
7. Stay fresh. I often use a timer to limit myself to an hour per bucket. That forces me to set ideas aside and come back to them with a fresh mind.
8. Keep moving. Move to the next bucket when your allotted time is up or when you hit a lull. Hey, sometimes a bucket just ends up being a dog. It’s a waste of time to force it. So write down what you can—even if they’re bad ideas—and come back to it later.
9. Make the hardest part choosing the best ideas. The biggest benefit of using this bucket approach is that you end up with a wide range of options—never a bad thing.

If you have an ad or campaign coming up, why not give this technique a try? And if the well runs dry for whatever reason, remember I’m here to help. Just call 917-664-1768 or email. 

Learn to write email subject lines that readers can’t resist.

If you’re like me, you probably strain over what to put in the subject line of your e-blasts. You ask yourself:

• “What will compel people to open it and not delete it?”
• “How do I make sure my email passes safely through spam filters?”
• “Is there anything I can do to make sure people know it’s from me and not some freak in a dingy back room in Karachi?”

Your subject line, and your attribution line—you know, the “from” of your email—are worth straining over. Because if that adage “if they don’t read your headline, they won’t read your ad” is true for print (and it is) it is 100 times truer with subject lines.

In the case of subject lines, the listless, the over-hyped, or too-familiar end up being trashed before they even have a chance to become an email—or worse yet, they spur people to opt out or tag everything from you as junk.

Let’s not let that happen. Here are some tips I’ve learned from writing emails for the likes of Audible.com, CENTURY21, and the Thinking Creatively Conference.

• Keep it to 69 characters (including spaces)
• If you have to go over in characters (long subject lines display, but not as well) put the important stuff first.
• Don’t be redundant; put your company name in the “from” line and don’t repeat it in the subject line.
• Try packing a benefit to your recipient in the subject line
• Action verbs are best, e.g., learn, see or start.
• Rather than writing a general line about all the great stuff inside the email, highlight one exciting detail.

I could go on and on about subject lines, but I’m going to save something for next post. Stay tuned for part 2.

Subjectively yours – Conrad

How to write subject lines that draw readers in deeper. 

Hope you had a relaxing Memorial Day – and didn’t check your emails too much. Okay, maybe just the ones with the really great subject lines.

Speaking of which, here is the follow-up to Part I of my list of tips for writing subject lines that land in computers and smart phones with irresistible appeal, interrupting quiet walks with your tablet on the beach, luring BBQ-goers off to a quiet corner to read their iPhone, and providing welcome distraction to drivers gridlocked in holiday traffic (only when you’re at a complete stop, now.)

Take a look, and please let me know what you think.

• Focus on expressing a clear idea and don’t worry about writing a complete sentence.
• If your email is part of a series, make all the subject lines distinctly different. You don’t want anyone thinking you’re sending the same email you already sent.
• Feel free to tease; give just enough away to entice without giving away the story.
• Be honest. Make sure your email is related to the email content. No one likes being tricked.
• Avoid spammy words like free, save and money. If your email service is any good, it will flag the “dirty” words for you.

Lastly, take a chance and do something interesting. With the amount of email people get these days, you have to. And if you need help coming up with subject lines or writing of another kind, remember I’m here to help.

Will drinking help your writing, or will it just make people think you’re drunk?

You ever wonder whether there’s any truth to all that Hemingway, Bukowski lore about liquor somehow lubricating the creative process and making you write beyond your potential?

Well, I have a few “valuable insights” gleaned from my experiences writing, drinking, and writing about drinking for the likes of Dewar’s, Jim Beam, Budweiser, Lowenbrau, Leinenkugel’s, Canyon Road, High Life, Icehouse, and, well, you get the picture.

The answer is: No.

That’s the long and short of it. I have tried it, and I’m here to tell you that none of those cases of special research beer we “tested” at Young & Rubicam or those bottles of Dewar’s 12 that floated around the agency at AF&G ever inspired a single concept, headline, or tagline. Sorry to burst the bubble, so to speak.

Drinking just makes you sleepy. It makes large burritos look more attractive than they are. And it tricks you into confusing “the idea of working” with actually working. In other words, you wouldn’t even know it if you were being productive. Drinking leaves you with perhaps the darkest hangover of all: not being done.

So what will help your writing?

• Write conversationally. The same way you speak. Just let it flow.
• If you’re tired and frustrated, sleep. Sometimes a good night’s rest (or even a 10-minute nap) is all it takes for your mind to work out the words.
• If you’re blocked, workout. (If you can’t get out, just try some push-ups.)
• Blocked badly? Permit yourself to write badly. (This is a good trick. Just remember to edit your work afterward or they’ll think you’re drunk.)
• Still blocked? Print it out, tape it to the wall, and leave it ’til tomorrow.

And once you’ve nailed it, by all means, reward yourself with a nice tall glass of whatever it is you’re having. This writing stuff ain’t easy.

Cheers.

Even designers who write, can benefit from working with a copywriter.

Are you one of the designers who can write? They do exist—I know, because I’ve worked with them.

But no designer is an island, especially when it comes to words. Even if you know how to turn a phrase or crank out a post, here are three things a professional copywriter can bring to your solo act:

• Brainstorming suggestions from a copy perspective. A wordsmith can open up new creative territory for you.
• Headline refinements: making the words perfect takes tweaking and re-tweaking. A copywriter can save you time and effort.
• Elaboration, i.e. stretching one ad into 12. Once you have a creative direction, it’s helpful to be able to delegate its development to a writer.

Recently, the designer/writers at cinquino+co., one of New Jersey’s leading brand communications agencies, brought backpocket copywriter (me) in for all three of the above. How did it work? Well, we brainstormed in person on two occasions and then I fine-tuned the headlines and copy remotely. Once a campaign was chosen, I helped them expand the campaign into 12 ads. You’ll find one of them below.

Hope it inspires you to look for an IJO jeweler – and work with a copywriter. (Hint, hint.)

Congratulations, you have a new product or service. You’ve poured years of effort and experience into it, and it’s just what the market needs. But, your baby has no name. So, how do you pick a memorable, distinctive and meaningful name–without making yourself crazy in the process? Here are the first four of my nine steps to coming up with a great name.

Step 1: Name Drop

Start by researching the names that your competitors have chosen. This will clue you into what names have been taken. It can also reveal the themes and areas for naming that have not been taken.

Step 2: Be Strategic

Split all the things you want the name to communicate into categories or “buckets.” For example, there could be a “cutting edge” bucket, a “historical roots” bucket, and a “we care” bucket.

Step 3: Go for bulk.

Ready, set, now go fill those buckets up. Start with a big list, and weed it down later. Take the time to thoroughly explore a wide range of directions. Let your creativity flow. But know when it’s time to stop.

Step 4: Set a deadline, then set it aside.

It’s important to have an end in sight. And it’s even more important to be in the right frame of mind when you edit your list of names. So put it away for an hour or a day or a week–whatever you can afford. Then come back to it and edit when you have a fresh perspective.

That’s it for this  edition. Look for steps 5-9 in my next installment when I’ll explain how to “kill your darlings” (as they say in writing) and get to a winning name.

Until then.

In my previous post, I showed you how to conduct a thorough naming exercise. Now I’ll show you how to separate the wheat from the chaff with the end goal of finding your own Snausages, DieHard, or Mac for your product or service. Get ready for part two of my nine steps to coming up with a great name for your product or service.

Step 5: Be brutal.
Scrutinize each and every name. Start by asking yourself if it meets the objectives you started with. A name needs a “reason for being.” If it veers into la-la land, kill it.

Step 6: Check for functionality. 
Listen to how the name sounds. Consider how it might look on paper, as a URL, spelled out in an 800 number, or as a logo. If it’s confusing or has objectionable connotations, give it the axe.

Step 7: Do a perfunctory search.
See if the name’s being used and how. Start with a simple Google search. Do a trademark search with the US Patent and Trademark Office. Lastly, check someplace like Go Daddy to see what URLs are available.

Step 8: Edit and re-edit. 
Make your goal a solid shortlist of 5-10 names. If you’re having trouble letting go, try putting the names on index cards and ordering them from most to least favorite. You’ll be surprised by how this can help you move things along.

Step 9: Cover your butt.
Lastly, hand your whole shortlist over to your trademark attorney. That way, no matter what your lawyer eliminates, you’ll still have strong back-ups.

Hope these steps help you come up with a great name . Please let me know how it goes. And remember if you need assistance along the way – I’m here to help.