Close the blinds, take the phone off the hook and shut your door – what I am about to tell you will revolutionise your business.

Time is one of the most precious commodities of the modern day. It is the one thing many of us never seem to have enough of.

As a copywriter, I am constantly asked what exactly it is that I do. I could go on and on about writing web copy, press releases, newsletters, sales letters, reviews, brochures…..dozed off yet? Exactly, it’s not the most glamorous job in the world.

Instead I tell people that as a copywriter I do far more than sell and put interesting and entertaining words on to paper or screen. By far the most important aspect of my profession is that I save you time.

Whether you run your own business or work for someone else, you know how important time is. There just never seem to be enough minutes in the day to get everything done. Shall I tell you why? Perhaps you are trying to do too much.

Most business people are perfectly capable of writing their own copy. But as your business becomes more successful you have less time. This is why you hire people to help you. After all, the key to success is to surround yourself with people smarter than you in their field of expertise. Your time is precious and you need to use it effectively within your business.

To see your business flourish you need to let go of some of the work. Yes, you would be giving up some control but only to generate and explore new ideas. A copywriter will help you with that. Not only will they write cracking copy, they can also use their creativity to help devise new and innovative ideas.

Copywriting is a highly specialised area which demands specific skills, knowledge and a certain type of personality and therefore it is a position you would want to fill from outside your company. A professional freelance copywriter will bring fresh ideas to your business and will create vibrant copy that will get your company noticed. Don’t get bogged down searching for one with extensive experience within your particular industry sector – ignorance is often the most valuable commodity a copywriter can bring. Their writing will not be dull and lifeless or a regurgitation of your industry norm.

Copywriting isn’t and should not be thought of as another expense. It is an investment. Put your resources into this aspect of your business and you’ll reap the rewards – your time and your company’s revenue will soar.

Sally Ormond

Freelance Copywriter

Do we need a code of conduct for writing blogs?

According to DLA Piper, only 5% of Internet users know the legal rights and wrongs of posting online. It also found that 77% of bloggers were unaware of the law surrounding publication and journalism.

The same study found that 42% of Internet users believe that bloggers should be made to follow the same legal standards as journalists. 46% like the idea of a voluntary code of conduct. Bloggers however, don’t agree, only 32% support the idea with 34% directly opposed.

According to a spokesman from DLA Piper, there is potential for bloggers to end up in court. Beyond defamation and employment law, there are plenty of other issues which bloggers could trip up on. Issues such as, but not limited to: Libel, Contempt of court, the Telecommunications act, Protection from harassment act, even the anti-terrorist legislation.

Given that nobody reads website Terms and Conditions (and many still do not have them!) wouldn’t a code of conduct be pointless? Essentially, a code of conduct is not a set of laws, followers of this conduct will however protect themselves against some potential legal surprises if UK companies and individuals do decide to clamp down. A court may even look more favourably on them for following the voluntary code if the matter does reach a court.

Who would sign up for a voluntary code of conduct? Would it be those who are already careful in what they publish? or would it be the trouble makers inspiring this discussion in the first place?

Joomla is a great web developer package, it is online software aimed to help users update the content on their website. It’s open source so all the website development is essentially done. It’s easily skinnable, that is we can apply a custom website design to the software and clients can run with it. Contributors around the world have all chipped in to make the software and modules so we can add shopping carts, blogs, forums, polls and many more!

So why don’t I like Joomla?

First and foremost, the source code is available to anyone. This means that although security problems are found quickly, they’re not always found by the right people! When they are found, another update needs to be performed to keep client’s websites completely bulletproof. These updates take time and cost money which you never expect to spend. We have and will continue to implement Joomla sites when it is the best solution but we give clients the chance to decide for themselves whether to keep updated for an ongoing fee or let their website slip and risk being attacked.

Finally Joomla’s power is another weak point. For large complex sites, Joomla does a great job at making things updatable and flexible, but unfortunately this makes it too complicated for simpler websites and/or less technically minded users. It also becomes difficult to keep updated if we change things to make it easier and better for a particular website.

These are really the only two down points to using Joomla over a custom solution, but I feel they’re quite big ones. If you don’t know how to use it and it’s insecure, it makes a really terrible website… The latter is rare, but it does happen.

An Alternative?

There are plenty of alternatives, but few really do the job, so we designed our own CMS around simplicity and security. Zako CMS is much easier to use, and aimed at your average informative website, it is focussed it at doing one thing so we feel it does it much better than any other (that we’ve seen and tested). Besides fading images and image upload, we also have a simple shopping cart module for 1-10 products (beyond this and a full ecommerce package is recommended) payments can be taken through Paypal, news can be updated, text can be changed in three steps (click text, edit, save) and audio/video can be embedded without ever having to look at code or use third party sites like youtube. 90% of our clients use this software and to date, noone has had any complaints (apart from one who had a tiny screen due to all sorts of browser add-ons so we had to adapt her version to fit in a letterbox of a browser) This, we could never have done with out-of-the-box Joomla!

Like Joomla, our software is open-source but not available to anyone. This means if you decide to leave Zako Media for any reason you can take your website, design and software to another web design company. It’s all written in PHP so any good web developer will be able to amend and make changes to the code. I want happy clients so we don’t lock anyone in just because they’re using our software, that would be like removing the engine of your car for choosing another service garage!

Conclusion

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to web design software which is why we have a variety of solutions mainly built in-house but with some tried and tested open source or commercial products. This gives us the flexibility to find the best solution and not try to hack our way through one to perform a task it was never designed to do. People approach us from all over Europe with one thing in common; they want to make more money. It’s my job to work out how best to achieve this goal online. To do this job properly, I need a variety of tools and not limit myself to just one or two and shrug when things go wrong.

It is a well known fact (apparently) that men think about sex every six seconds. So next time the guy next to you on the train, plane, tube or bus has a misty look in his eyes you can be pretty sure what he is thinking about.

From a copywriter’s point of view this is a bit of a pain because if you write a sales letter that takes 5 minutes to read, your carefully crafted sales pitch is interrupted 50 times. To be honest, whether the statistic is true or not is neither here nor there – the point is that when someone picks up your sales letter your reader is more than likely focusing on something else other than your sales message.

A good sales writer will know their product intimately and will be able to write about it convincingly. Fantastic, but how does that help with the wondering mind problem? It doesn’t, but it does highlight that to be a great sales writer you have to know your reader intimately too. No, I am not saying that you should dash out and romance every member of your target audience. You’d be far too knackered to write anything but you should be able to understand their idiosyncrasies, their motivations, their innermost fears and desires.

Before you even start writing you should build a psychological profile of your reader, for example:

• What sex are they?
• How old are they?
• What do they want more of in their lives?
• How do others see them?
• Are they head or heart people?

By doing this you will find it easier to write copy that speaks directly to them in a way they’ll find difficult to ignore. Admittedly in some cases their own inner thoughts will still be more appealing but hopefully it will grab the attention of most and get your message across.

In a nut shell, if you do the leg work you’ll reap the rewards with a masterly piece of sales writing that will grab hold of your prospects by the collar and shake them – figuratively speaking of course.

Sally Ormond

Freelance Copywriter

Let me take your business to new heights by making every word count.

Twitter, the popular social networking applet which allows users to answer ‘What are you doing now?’ in 140 characters or less has stopped sending SMS messages to UK users. Unable to find a mobile partner to offer better rates, they have been forced with escalating costs to stop the service all together. Twitter already capped the messages at 250 per month, but this still costs around £500 per user per year outside the US, India and Canada.

The following alternatives are available:

• m.twitter.com works on browser-enabled phones
• m.slandr.net works on browser-enabled phones
• TwitterMail works on email-enabled phones
• Cellity works on java-enabled phones
• TwitterBerry works on BlackBerry brand phones
• Twitterific works on iPhones

In the meantime, you can still update your twitter status by sending an SMS to +44 7624 801 423 as many times as your credit will allow.

Do you know the head of any mobile network in the UK? If they are interested in becoming a saviour, and gain plenty of extra publicity, put them in touch with Twitter to get things moving again!

Twitter is used by a number of companies wishing to keep in touch with each other, one SMS to the system will forward out to all ‘followers’ keeping each other up to date with what’s going on. Business collaborations have also been using it to keep the teams updated with current developments, and Joe Public to keep in touch with friends. We’ve yet to see any paid advertising on the platform, but the potential revenue for this would be immense, especially if the SMS service could be resumed.

Besides keeping in contact with other users, strengthening relationships and promoting themselves and their brand, users can also use Twitter to keep up to date with BBC News, what’s going on in the Big Brother house and even London Underground service updates. Twitter can be used to update status’ on several other platforms like Ecademy, Facebook and can be set to update automatically using other APIs, RSS feeds from blogs etc.