We all know Tim Burton, whether we are solid Burtonites or if we have only watched a few of his films with friends or family. He is known for his unique take on films and many remember him for his films like Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, and Beetlejuice. However, his incredible filmography is not the only great thing about this unique director – his copywriting skills are something that any copywriter can learn from. We are going to take a look at a few ways in which Tim Burton does copywriting and how it is tremendously successful. In fact, how he does copywriting is really what has helped push him to the top, since his films are not the standard Hollywood fare.
Tim Burton Stays True To Himself
One thing you can never say about Tim Burton is that he copies or hides behind methods that are overdone. He is known for completely being himself and anything that seems overdone (like Johnny Depp in almost every film) are only overdone because he has stuck to what he likes. You know that you are watching a Burton film, or that he had something to do with the film because it has his unique signature looks and designs. He also sticks with the things he loves and those things that inspired him to become a director, such as using Vincent Price for as long as he could in his films or making a film based off of painter Margaret Keane, who one can obviously see inspired Burton’s art. When being interviewed, he never strays far from his personality, which endears him to many people.
What can copywriters learn from this? It shows how important it is to stay yourself and be genuine. Sure, sometimes it might seem difficult to be yourself when it comes to writing copy, but if you try to sound like anyone else, it will come across as fake and forced. Burton does change to different versions of himself depending on the situation, and copywriters can do the same. If you are witty and sarcastic, you can definitely use this in your casual, laid back pieces, but you should also be able to transform your wit and sarcasm into something professional. Whatever your personality is, always make sure to stay true to it. It will make your writing sound more personable and can create excellent relationships with existing and potential clients.
Tim Burton Dedicates Time To His Projects
You can never say that Tim Burton doesn’t spend enough time on his projects. While he didn’t direct Nightmare Before Christmas, he did direct Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie, all of which are stop motion. (Stop motion filming is a huge process and commitment to undertake.) Many of Burton’s projects all started a long time before they were even considered for large motion pictures, many of which he wrote while working as an animator for Disney. He wrote the story for Nightmare Before Christmas in 1982, and Disney considered for a brief moment to use the poem as a TV show. It was eventually shelved for being far too strange for a TV audience. Eventually, it was filmed and released in 1993 because of Burton constantly working to get it put into production.
This shows an awesome level of dedication to his projects, even if he couldn’t direct some of them. No matter what role he had to take, he always took some role in making his films to make sure things were done like he wanted them to be. This is great for copywriters because it shows that dedication can produce long lasting, quality material. If you simply aim just to write out X amount of blogs a week or to write X amount of word web content pieces a week, you will find that the quality of your content is low and lacking. Spend some time and work on your projects to ensure that you produce the highest quality pieces.
Tim Burton Builds Lasting Relationships With Fans
While Tim Burton is known for being insanely shy, his fans know him as someone they can relate to. This is because he works hard on his projects, gives access to things like an art book, and stays true to himself. Because he follows these core values in copywriting, he is able to build long lasting relationships with his fans. Many feel they know him, though they’ve never met him, simply because he can get on their level and speak to them in a way no one else has been able to.
This is great for copywriting, because relationships are what will make your web content soar. Building relationships will also help you beat your competition at the game and get a strong client base. The relationships you build now will ensure that you will have a consistent client base that will always support you, share your material, and, of course, purchase your items. Build those relationships by following what Tim Burton does, be yourself and dedicate time to your content.
Copywriting Inspiration from Tim Burton
You can learn quite a bit from Tim Burton. Take this chance to look into his work some more and see what inspiration you can gain from him for your content marketing and copywriting. You will love the results you get once you follow the above steps!
Do you know what “the glance” is? It’s the .7 seconds that we have to win readers. In that tiny time period, we have to get the audience to take action. They have to want to go beyond a glance based on what they see and how it makes them feel in what amounts to the blink of an eye. How can you create the kind of irresistible content that wins clicks, reads, and shares? That’s what we’re about to consider.
The Challenges of Creating Content
One of the harsh facts of today’s business world is that everything runs on a budget—usually a series of tight ones. An even harsher fact is that today’s businesses are running on few staff and more workflow out of pure necessity. Who has time to write content?
According to PR Daily, a recent business study concluded that approximately 75 percent of buyers are likely to use social media during the purchase process. Roughly, 55 percent of B2B survey respondents confessed to using social websites to search for information.
So, how do you tie in a great headline, opener, even a tweet about your blog piece so people READ your blog…and want to go beyond the glance? Do you educate your staff or outsource? How about a little of both?
The Fundamentals of Irresistible Content
If we break it down to the basics, there are three fundamentals of content that cannot be ignored:
The Intuitive Title: The title has to pique curiosity. It’s one of the most important aspects of any piece of content. In as few as 5 to 10 words, a title conveys the entire point of the content. It hints at the tone of the piece, and—if crafted properly—it creates an instant emotional spark that draws the audience in, compelling them to click into the content.
Descriptive Headings: The skeleton of content is in the headlines. Each headline conveys an essential part of the content structure. Once a reader clicks into your content, the glance becomes a quick review of the headlines. It is vital to craft headings that pique curiosity, convey the meat of the content in short bursts, and make the reader say, “That sounds interesting. I should read that.”
The Story: If you do the job right, the title and headings will hook the reader in that .7 second window. But the hook doesn’t end there. Once they’re on your page, staring down your content and starting to read, you have to tell the story. Business2Community recommends writing “like you are talking.” The best way to connect and deliver a story that will keep the reader engaged is to write like you’re speaking directly to them. Tell them the story. Show them why they should care. Give them something of value to take away. The art of weaving classic storytelling into your copy is one of the most effective means of creating delectable and completely irresistible content.
Now, don’t think that these fundamentals are only applicable to your written content. These fundamentals are highly applicable across ALL of your content. It doesn’t matter if you’re broadcasting a podcast series, marketing an eBook, sharing a SlideShare, producing a video seminar, or crafting the meat of your landing page. A hooking title, classy and interesting breakdowns, and the unique story the audience can’t get anywhere else are the foundation of every piece of every type of tantalizing content. But the foundation doesn’t stop there.
Know Your Audience: We hear it all of the time, but it’s one of the most overlooked cornerstones of creating irresistible content. Copyblogger recommends using an empathy map to put yourself in the shoes of your audience,
Create An Experience: Storytelling isn’t the only way to create an experience. Everything contributes to your readers’ experience, from the look and functionality of your website to the copy they’re skimming and hopefully reading.
Show Your Personality: If you ask a big business why they invest so much in creating their own personal branding, they’ll likely say it’s because people like and trust brands. The more people like and trust you, the more likely they are to buy from you. According to Business2Community, one of the keys to creating irresistible content is to show your personality in your content.
Be Extreme: Business2Community goes on to point out that attempting to keep neutral ground is a recipe for frustration. Instead, be irresistible by offering something spectacular! Offer an opinion. State your outlook. Take a stand! “Only then” says Business2 Community, “will you attract…like-minded subscribers.”
Try Something New: The number of tools at your disposal to create irresistible content is truly amazing. For example, have you ever thought about using content curation as a means of filling that downtime in between your new content pieces? What about using crowdsourcing as a means of collecting knowledge from different sources? Don’t be shy of trying something new. Sometimes it’s that fresh infusion of a new way of doing things that suddenly boosts your content to irresistible.
Repurposing Is Okay: Copyblogger says that after you exert the effort into writing your content, you should be open to repurposing it. In truth, every piece of content starts out as copy. Podcasts and videos have scripts. SlideShares need to be outlined before the text and graphics can be pulled together. Once you’ve crafted your content, think about how to repurpose it and get the most mileage. Different types of content appeal to different members of your audience. The busy would be buyer who didn’t have time to read that blog post just might watch the related video because it works for their on-the-go lifestyle.
A Little Content TLC Goes a Long Way
With a little content TLC, you can be a brand hero and successfully create and publish irresistible content every day. Learn by example by checking out the 5 irresistible copywriting examples we covered in April. And remember, there’s no shame and everything to gain in educating your staff and outsourcing your content needs to an expert copywriter.
The 2014 Olympics were filled with talented people, glorious uniforms, and humor. It had its own twitter feed, and memes from different events were usually on the Internet within an hour of the event occurrence.
Although the Olympics may seem like a spectacle with no substance, we as copywriters can actually take inspiration from various things that happened in the two-week span that was the Winter Olympics. Let’s take a look—shall we?
How to Handle those Annoying Mess-ups
The most memorable moment outside of the #sochiproblems twitter trend was that pesky Olympic ring not opening. Memes started popping up everywhere, joke articles posted, and people talked about it for the entirety of the Olympics. It is something that will live on for years and give Type A personality types nightmares until the end of days. There is an important lesson to be learned with this particular mess up, though.
At the closing ceremony, watchers were not expecting Russia, of all countries, to make fun of itself. Many people had, and still do have, preconceived ideas about Russia and were completely surprised when Russia did something a lot of people are afraid to do by mocking themselves and turning a bad situation into a humorous one. They took and implemented the old saying of “it is better to laugh with people then have people laugh at you,” into the closing ceremony. That was quite epic! It was on the Internet in minutes, maybe even seconds. Twitter exploded with tweets exclaiming how amazing it was, and everyone seemed to enjoy it completely.
What can we take away from this mess up? Well, we all know we will mess up eventually and possibly mess up just as epically. We write our copy, read it, re-read it, and send it off to editors, but undoubtedly something will happen. That is Murphy’s Law for you. There is likely to be some time when you find information online and share it or quote it only to find out it is a farce. That is embarrassing, and it is understandable if all you want to do is hide from the world. Instead, follow Russia’s example of making fun of their flub. Joke about your mess up with followers and readers; do not try to hide the fact that you messed up. Everything will be fine, and people will enjoy and appreciate that you are laughing at yourself and your mistake, as well as being honest.
Staying Current with Your Copywriting
Keeping up with the trends is important in every aspect of advertising, hosting sporting events, and copywriting. If you are not current, people will turn away from your events or stop reading your material. You do not want this to happen because those attendees and readers help keep you successful!
When it came to advertising the Winter Olympics, the BBC went about it in a very current way. Their commercial leading up to the Olympics had a Game of Thrones vibe to it, very dark and full of treacherous landscapes. Not only did they play off of the darkness and wintry aspects of Game of Thrones, they also got an actor from the show to do the voice over. Fans of the TV show were very excited when they heard Tywin Lannister’s (aka Charles Dance) voice begin. Another way advertisers got people to tune into the Olympics is the “Loser Gets Bieber” billboard that went viral. It was set up in Chicago for the men’s Canada vs. USA hockey game and many people who otherwise might not have watched the game, tuned in. It quickly became the “most important” game of the Olympics.
Photo credit: Command Sign
We are not suggesting making fun of celebrities who are in the news for some of their most raucous behavior, but we are showing that keeping up with current events brings in more viewers, and in your case, more readers. As Hubspot points out, many of the athletes at the Olympics were down to earth and kept up with the current trends, particularly those within the extreme sports category. The word “stoked” was used 14 times, someone joked “Wu-Tang” was for the children (which, we will say, they aren’t), and people were just generally easy going. This is a big part of society now, especially with the millennial generation. Due to this laidback approach many millennials tweeted and talked about the Olympics.
Staying True to You and Your Readers
Another important lesson you can take inspiration from in your copywriting is how many athletes were unassuming while also managing to please their fans. When people tune in for extreme sports, they want to see laidback people, not people in shiny costumes who use exquisite language. When tuning in for figure skating, viewers want to see those sparkly, and sometimes outlandish, costumes. Let’s not forget that Bermuda stayed true to themselves and wore shorts to the Winter Olympics opening and closing ceremonies.
Photo credit:Mashable
The Olympics are all about knowing which audiences tune into which events, and making sure advertisements and uniforms, or costumes, appeal to that demographic. The same goes for copywriting. Knowing whom you are writing for and whom you are writing to is very important. If you do not know the demographic you are appealing to, eventually people will lose interest in your writing.
Creating a Buzz
One thing that can be said about the 2014 Winter Olympics is that the opening and closing ceremony fashions were eye-catching and, in most cases, memorable. Twitter was ablaze with people discussing the different uniforms each country wore. America had gigantic Cosby sweaters while Canada had striking red coats, and let’s not forget those curling pants worn by Norway and Russia. While many fashion experts found the American and German teams to have terrible fashion sense, many people online loved the bright and crazy color combos. When the opening ceremony ended people were not just talking about that fifth ring, they were also talking about all the crazy fashion, and which aspects of the fashion they loved or hated.
Photo credit: Ints Kalnins/Reuters
How can you learn from the fashion of the Olympics? As we said earlier, many fashion experts really hated the uniforms worn for the opening ceremony. They talked hours on end about how terrible the fashions were, but this is actually great. When it comes to writing your material you may think people saying negative things about your content is the worst that could happen when in reality it can be pretty good. Having haters on your site shows that your content is engaging enough to have people disagree with you.
People love to disagree with others. We just do! We love to debate, and we love to show that we are right. Having content that gets people debating with you is a great sign you are doing something good.
Photo credit:Mashable
Lightning Fast: The Internet Responds
It is a well-known fact that the Internet responds to crazy things at lightning fast speeds. It seems like a race now for people to post responses as quickly as possible while also creating the best response. Just any old response is not going to cut it when it comes to Twitter and Tumblr, it has to be something memorable and something that will go viral. The Olympics proved this true as people responded to various political elements all the way through the events that had some of the craziest moments. Buzzfeed is one of the first sites to compile the Internet’s reactions, and after the fifth ring failed to open, they created a list of the different responses. This list had a total of 657k views! It was highly shared on social media sites; specifically Facebook and people are still sharing this post.
Copywriters should take note of how quickly the Internet responds to things, especially if it is a mistake. The good part? You can actually use this to your advantage if it happens to you. It will generate more site traffic and more interest in your writing. JCPenney was recently at the forefront of a Twitter prank/hoax drunk tweet that have since generated a lot of buzz. In 6 Ways to Fix Your Social Media When Drunk Tweets Get Out, it’s easy to see how you can make a negative event such as working quickly and decisively, being completely honest, and using it to build up publicity, work to your advantage. We understand just how fast the Internet will respond to your mess up, and it is important for you to understand this, as well. By using the Internet’s rapid response time, you can garner more interest by essentially rolling with the punches, whether the Internet is responding to you or another situation.
Final Thoughts
The Olympics provide an interesting backdrop of conversation for copywriters as they look for inspiration. It may not seem like one can get much inspiration from something filled with extreme sporting events, but it is absolutely possible. Next time you write, think of these few ways that you can get inspiration from major events that come around with more frequency than the Olympics. You will be amazed by how much you can learn!
Friskies – that wonderful cat food company with all of those wonderful commercials; whether you are a cat owner or not, you know this brand and what they do. They’re a huge contender in the cat food industry and they always play on the fun aspects of a cat’s personality. They are part of the Purina food company, which is one of the top pet food companies and many vets prefer Purina over any other store bought brand. Today, we are going to focus on Friskies and how they do copywriting. While you might not think you can learn anything from a cat food company, you may actually find some helpful tips and gain some awesome inspiration. Let’s take a look at this purr-fect company!
Friskies Food For All Cats
Friskies has a huge selection of wet and dry food for cats and they make sure to market this selection as much as possible. They have food for indoor and outdoor cats, elderly cats, kittens, and a number of foods that you can use to spoil your cat such as their new breakfast food line. Friskies knows what it takes to bring customers in and they make sure always to have something fun and new for their client base. Friskies know the universal truth of all cat owners – they spoil their cats as much as possible.
How does this help you in your copywriting? Friskies understands what their customers want and what their customers do. This is a prime example of researching your client base and offering them something that appeals to their interests and needs. While it may seem boring at first, research is one of the best marketing ploys out there. The more you know about your client base, the more revenue you bring into your company. Start researching, much like Friskies, and start offering products or services that your client base wants and needs.
It’s All Fun And Games
One step that Friskies made that raised a few eyebrows and created a lot of funny YouTube videos was the decision to release iPad games for cats. This sounds dangerous, but cat owners love to spoil their pets and with proper protection for their iPad, the cats won’t damage it. These cat game apps were the first ever to be released by a cat food brand and cat owners loved the idea. This is a great marketing ploy for Friskies because they know people are more apt to trust a company such as Friskies instead of purchasing an app from a company they do not know. It also helped bring in more customers for Friskies. If people didn’t use the Friskies brand, they most likely switched to the food brand after purchasing these games.
Another way Friskies involved their clients was by providing them with a link to a live cat stream on Facebook. This live stream enabled viewers to control the cat toys and zoom cameras in or out. This was a great way to involve cat lovers with something they all enjoy, playing with cats no matter who the cats belong to. One of the nifty little catches to this marketing technique? If a person found that they really adored a little cat from this stream, the person was able to adopt the kitty and take him or her home. Such a great marketing ploy on Friskies part! Giving cat people to ability to do what they love – play with adorable cats and adopt one that needs a loving home.
This shows the importance of fun elements and client engagement in copywriting. Friskies knows that they will only continue to grow if they continue to interact with humans and their cats. This is something you need to learn, as well, in your marketing techniques. Engage with your clients in a variety of ways and try to make the engagement as fun as possible. This promotes a positive attitude from clients towards your company and makes them more likely to tell others about your company, as well.
Grumpy Cat Sponsorship
One of the best marketing ploys Friskies has taken has been using Grumpy Cat as their spokes-cat. The company is using this opportunity to meld something that is incredibly popular with the food brand. This promotes both Grumpy Cat and Friskies; a match made in heaven. They have several videos with Grumpy and she became the face of The Friskies, an award show created by the company.
This award show gives awards to various Internet cats and their accompanying videos and photos. It is a great way to market off of the Internet’s love of cats while bringing in more customers for the company. But we all know that Grumpy Cat does copywriting very well.
The Grumpy Cat sponsorship is a great example of doing something involving current trends and being relevant with your content. If Grumpy Cat was not popular, Friskies would find another famous Internet cat or whatever the current trend was. They will continue to do this as trends change, staying up-to-date with what their customers enjoy. You should take their example and continue to stay up-to-date on trends on the Internet, as well as trends within your field. Always stay relevant; customers will appreciate it.
Friskies Copywriting: In Closing
You can learn a lot from the Friskies brand and how they do copywriting. Visit their site and take a look at all of their other items and content they offer. They are constantly coming up with unique ideas to engage their client base and bring in new customers. You can watch them over the coming year to see how they adapt to changes within trends and see how they shift their approach in order to continue to market relevantly. Start crafting content that is fun, trendy, relevant, and something that everyone can enjoy. Once you do this, you will watch your client base begin to grow and you will start bringing in more revenue!
There you are, sitting behind your computer screen wondering what in the world to write next. You want it to sound new, exciting, and original all while bringing people in and making them want more. Currently, you might be feeling stuck because you just don’t know how to go about crafting this creative content and all of the standard blog posts you’re writing just aren’t cutting it. This blog is going to explore a few tips that will help you start crafting unique content and help you stand out in crowded Internet-land.
1. Craft Perfect Headlines
A huge part of creative content is your headline and sub-headers. Finding the right ones for your blog will help make it pop and stand out from all others. Headlines are what draw people in, so you want it to reflect your blog while also being unique and interesting. Sometimes, it is easier for you to come up with the perfect headline after you have finished writing your blog because you will be able to pick the best headline possible for it. Other times you will need to have a headline chosen in order to know how to write on the topic. You can go to popular websites and see how they formulate their headlines to give you ideas and inspiration for future ones.
In addition, sub-headers are important. These are the mini-headlines people will read when they click the link to your page. We all do this. We open a page, scroll down, read the sub-headers and decide if we need to read it. The best thing to do here is craft some very interesting sounding sub-headers that give just enough information to tease readers, but not enough to make them feel they don’t need to read your blog. Sub-headers are also handy for you because they create an outline for you, keeping you on track and on topic.
2. Marvel Has Visuals Down To A Science
Whether we are fans of Marvel or not, we enjoy the gorgeous quality of all Marvel films. It is because of this quality that many people are gearing up to go see a film based on a band of heroes that aren’t very well known (Guardians of the Galaxy), but consumers know that Marvel means quality and enjoyment.
You will want this type of quality in your writing to keep people coming back. Utilize visuals with your content and create stunning looking formats for your blogs, utilize great stock photos for a blog photo, or craft an engaging infographic that is visually appealing. Visuals appeal to the masses and the more visually appealing your site and blogs are, the better.
3. Geek Is The New Sexy
We aren’t sure if you’ve noticed or not, but geek (or nerd) is the new sexy. People love to learn about things and they want content that makes them feel knowledgeable while teaching them something new. They don’t want something that continually talks down to them nor do they want something filled with information that was “so yesterday.” “How does this pertain to creativity?” Simple. The more you teach someone something in an easy to understand way, the more likely you are to be creative with your writing. Just try it and watch the creative juices begin to flow. You’ll find new ways to write sentences and your descriptions will help paint an excellent picture in readers’ minds.
4. Take A Lesson From The Doctor: Focus On Your Fans
A huge thing Doctor Who has done with the reboot is doing things for the fans. Sure, you’ll hear angry comments here or there, but most of the time everything is done with the fans in mind. On the DVD commentary, you even learn that the producers and director shied away from a big re-introduction scene of the Doctor and opted for a more personal touch; same with viewing the inside if the T.A.R.D.I.S for the first time in years. Do this with your writing. Focus on your readers instead of the search engines, and you’ll find it much easier to be super creative and come up with some great, unique web content. Write what you know they’ll be interested in hearing or what they’ll be interested in learning. This puts you on a personal level with your readers and makes you not seem like some unknown entity within the Internet.
5. Netflix and Barnes and Noble Are Great Resources
We aren’t referring to their content campaigns, but those could be helpful too! We are talking about what they sell and what their business is; books, television shows, and films. These are chockfull of information ready to inspire you and get your creative mind pumping at full power. Many people say these are timewasters, but when you just can’t think of a creative way to write your content these forms of media might just be the best thing for you. It gives you a chance to turn your mind off and just rest, while enjoying a show or book that stimulates your brain. You’ll notice as you take these breaks, that all of the sudden ideas spring up out of nowhere. Make sure you have a pen and notepad nearby to write down all of your ideas or head on over to your computer to write from great unique content!
6. Use Stories To Make Your Content Unique
Storytelling is something that has been around since the dawn of humanity. We haven’t been able to go through our lives without stories and we all enjoy them, no matter what they are about. Use this as a great way to start writing creative and unique content that will be shared multiple times. You may not publish all of your storytelling content, but it will get your brain thinking about many different topics and ideas. Even just writing a creative story for you can do this. You can write a story about your brand for your upcoming company anniversary or you can write a story about helping at a local charity or farmers market. People love these stories and will eat them up quickly.
When In Doubt, Rest
If you are still having a hard time crafting unique content, don’t stress out! It is OK. This is something all copywriters go through and we can all understand the real struggle of crafting unique content. One of the best things you can do if none of these tips are working is take some time to rest your mind and enjoy life. Go for a walk, grab some ice cream, or get out of your house to see a movie. This will help your brain shift from focusing on your content and, just like with point number five, you will notice that ideas start coming to you out of the blue. So go grab some Starbucks, enjoy life, and get back to writing. You’ll be pleasantly surprised with all of the unique content you come up with!
