Contrary to popular belief, using business cliches in your writing isn’t always a bad thing. The definition of a cliche is “a trite or overused expression or idea,” but sometimes those terms and sayings are overused for a reason: because they work. Advertising works best when it’s able to transmit a wealth of information and [...]

We’ve all had an experience where we had to re-read something in order to understand its meaning—whether it’s a sentence with an unusual structure or simply a word we’ve never seen before. As a copywriter, it’s your duty to make sure that your audience never has a similar experience whenever reading your copy. Many marketing [...]

We don’t normally think of business writing and the art of narrative storytelling as having much in common. It doesn’t seem likely, after all, that the person writing a corporate brochure or promotional flyer is also the author of your favorite adventure novel. But at the same time, which of those things are you most [...]

Even the best of us make common spelling and grammar mistakes from time to time, and we often do so without even realizing it. Writing is a bit like a very elaborate and nuanced card game; there are so many different rules and guidelines that you can “play” for years before finding out you’ve been [...]

Nobody likes to feel confused—when we don’t understand something, we tend to reject it. Even worse is when we get the incorrect impression about something and don’t find out we were wrong until later. Clarity is key when it comes to business writing, and word choice plays a crucial role in how easy it is [...]

You could write the most effective, emotional, efficient copy for your printed marketing media, and it wouldn’t amount to anything if a call to action wasn’t clearly defined. In written advertising, a call to action (by definition) is an imperative sentence that instructs the reader to perform a task. They’re absolutely crucial because once you’ve [...]

One of the biggest traps a marketing writer can fall into is confusing features vs. benefits. Often when selling a product or service, copywriters merely present a list of features–and that’s simply not enough to make a sale. Both features and benefits are equally important for effective advertising copy, but at the end of the [...]