Writing Effective Promotional Materials

Hook, Line, and Sinker

Writing Your Own Promotional Materials When You Can’t Afford to Outsource

Often after starting your own small business you cannot afford to hire marketing experts, freelance writers, and graphic artists to create all your promotional materials (newsletters, fliers, newspaper ads, direct mailers, and even billboards). Until you can afford it you’ll have to perform many of these tasks by yourself. The most difficult of which may be writing all the text associated with business promotions, also called “copy.”In order to simplify this task you should stick with the basics. The following are 8 quick tips in writing good copy for your tax practice:

1. Lead with a strong headline.You won’t get anyone to read your promotion unless you have a catchy title. And it must be a title your reader will appreciate and be drawn to. This requires you to try and think like your target market. What are they interested in? What do they appreciate? How would what you’re sharing benefit them?2. Focus on the strength of your first three sentences.Nearly as important as your headline, your first few sentences must be strong and intriguing. In order for your reader to reach the meat of your promotion, you must lead them there, one sentence at a time. If they don’t make it past your first paragraph, they won’t make it to your call to action.3. Write to your audience, not other tax preparers.Because you are well-versed in tax lingo it may be natural for you to write text that includes vocabulary your readers may not be familiar with. Again it’s important that you write your text with great consideration of your audience and their needs and interests.4. Use short sentences and vary their length.Long convoluted sentences discourage readers. One of the ways you pull them from one sentence to the next is in using short sentences varied in length. They work like links in a chain, leading readers to the promotion that is the heart of your text.5. Avoid wordiness.Don’t try to sound fancy or smart. Avoid big words and complex sentences when possible. And only use adjectives and adverbs when absolutely necessary. You want your text to be simple and direct.6. Use active voice.John wrote all his promotional materials. All the promotional materials were written by John. The same thing is being described in both sentences, while the first uses active voice and the second uses passive voice. The first has a subject performing a verb. The second isn’t as direct or energetic as the first with the subject being acted upon. You should try, whenever possible, to use active voice and strong verbs when writing your copy.7. Get to the point.Don’t beat around the bush. Your readers know you have a point; don’t bury it beneath long-winded text.8.End with a call to action.The point of any promotion should be to ask your reader to act upon what you’ve written. It can be as simple as telling them to remember your name when tax season rolls around. Or to come in for a free tax consultation. Your promotion isn’t a promotion unless you ask your reader to act upon the information you provide.

Once you make enough money to outsource some of these marketing tasks you can ask a copywriter to create these promotional materials for you. Until then, following these eight simple tips can help you write your own copy, reaching more potential clients than you might otherwise.