Specific tips from Copycamp 2019, as seen by Veronika:
Great value for money – the girls from H1
Lucie Hrdinová and Martina Tomková from the H1 agency put together a few tips on how to achieve big changes in your copy at low cost. Through the use of details. An experienced online specialist should have these down to a fine art by now, but when we’re pressed for time, we sometimes forget them. Let’s refresh our memories on a few of them:
- using ordinary anchor texts, they showed how changing every “click HERE” to, say, “I want to choose a car” pushes the website up in organic search results. In short, a big leap in just a few seconds’ work, sometimes by dozens of places in organic search results.
- They presented specific case studies on the use of “newsjacking” – current topics cleverly incorporated into marketing. A well-utilised event that’s making waves in society can actually boost traffic by hundreds of per cent. A political scandal, expensive butter, or a tiger that’s escaped from the zoo. We all know this, really, but who among us keeps a constant watch out for such things every day?
Tip: Play around with anchor texts and start looking at newspaper headlines as marketing opportunities.
Look for the story behind everything – René Nekuda
René Nekuda is the king of the Czech storytelling world. He sees a story absolutely everywhere. Absolutely. In art, politics, religion, sport and even education. Memories of a holiday long past are stored in our minds as micro-stories, flashes of events or feelings. A few seconds that have naturally stuck with us. Narrative psychology explains why this works so well. It suggests that every person naturally perceives their life as a story.
Tip: Next time, instead of simply stating facts, try cleverly weaving the information into a story.
René gave the example of the mushroom season. If a TV news report simply tells us that 35% more porcini mushrooms grew this year than last, we’ll probably forget the information soon. But what if the author weaves it into a story? Perhaps about a man who got up at 4 am to make sure he could gather the best mushrooms and make his wife happy. Because there are 35% more porcini mushrooms growing this year than last, he brought home a full basket and will prepare a delicious fried dish for his wife. Lovely. What woman wouldn’t want a man like that, and what man wouldn’t be impressed by such an enthusiast? The information has found its way to us through a story.
Tip: Get some DIXIT cards for your table and try using visual associations as a source of inspiration. This tool will spark your imagination for storytelling in the blink of an eye.
Feedback hurts – Martina Vévodová
Martina from the Content Agency came up with a topic that, whilst neither funny nor popular, is something we all need like salt. How can we get the most out of feedback? Logically, it’s clear to us all that without constructive criticism, we can only dream of improving our writing. But it still takes a dose of heroism to have our writing regularly picked apart. At the Content Agency, they have a well-developed “methodology” for this, with plenty of useful tips. For example:
- Don’t take feedback personally. (Let’s be honest, that in itself is a discipline most of us need to practise. If you often take things personally, we recommend reading The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz first 😉
- Always focus on the same points you’re checking for in the text, and name them. Clichés, unnecessary fluff, word repetition, subheadings… your feedback will be consistent and you’ll get better at it.
- Don’t forget to offer praise during your review. Your colleague will feel relieved and be more willing to see the shortcomings in their text. (We know this, of course, but in the heat of giving feedback we often overlook it).
Allowing yourself to be criticised voluntarily is definitely a step out of your comfort zone. But the feeling of overcoming your fears and writing better day by day thanks to criticism should be worth a regular dose of masochistic suffering for a good marketer.
Tip: Let your colleagues have a go at your texts; let them tear them to shreds and leave no stone unturned. With hindsight, you’ll thank them :).
Daily bonus: Follow your idols
Tap into the bottomless well of inspiration that’s within everyone’s reach. Follow your copywriting idols regularly on social media or blogs. Spend ten minutes with them over a cup of coffee every morning and try to look at your own writing through their eyes. It brings a breath of fresh air.
Verča has her sights set on, for example: Otto Bohuš, Richard Dobiáš, Michelle Losekoot or Ondřej Ilinčev. And you?
Do you want to improve your website’s performance too?