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Differentiate yourself as a conversational copywriter

Hundreds of copywriters have now completed the conversational copywriting course.

And now I’m seeing how some of these writers are repositioning themselves as conversational copywriters.

Smart move.

This is a powerful way to set yourself apart from the crowd.

There are tens of thousands of competing freelance copywriters out there, all of them looking for work, all making much the same claims.

When you stand up, raise a hand and explicitly tell the world you’re a conversational copywriter, that sets you apart and shines a spotlight on your message.

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A conversational voice for business.

As I wrote in a previous post, the Internet was conversational before the web as we know it even existed.

Since then many writers, myself included, have worked hard to persuade companies and organizations that writing for the web should, above all else, be conversational in tone.

Have we been successful in turning the tide against old-school promotional copywriting, and boring, stiff corporate writing?

I’d say our success rate has been spotty at best.

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Conversational voice search

I got an email recently from someone who told me that conversational copywriting was all very nice, but wouldn’t work for search engine optimization.

He told me that the unique structure of organic search terms would never be a good fit for conversational writing.

Huh…

Well… he’s totally, absolutely wrong.

He clearly hasn’t heard of or given much thought to the meteoric growth of voice search.

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If you remember the Internet from way back in the 1980s and 90s, you’ll doubtless recall there was no buying or selling stuff online back then.

No web browsers. No web.

But a lot of text-only discussion lists and bulletin boards.

That’s where we all got into conversation. Lots of conversations.

That why I say conversation is the native language of the web.

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Um and Er in conversation

If you ever do any public speaking, or give presentations for work, you probably obsess a little over getting rid of all those Ums, Ers and other “fillers” that creep into your language.

Speaking coaches will train you to avoid them when speaking live. And audio engineers will edit them out when producing recorded speeches, presentations or training products.

But… it turns out that Ums and Ers actually have an important function.

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A cure for corporate gobbeldygook

Any kind of language that creates distance between a business and its prospects and customers is a problem.

Put simply, you can’t turn a stranger into a customer by creating distance, by pushing people away.

Much of the time that distance is created by the language a company uses in its business and marketing communications.

First, overly promotional language creates distance simply by stimulating the reader’s defenses. Try to sell at me too hard and I’ll defend myself by stepping back, walking away or ignoring you altogether.

Secondly, overly formal, corporate language, filled with impenetrable jargon creates distance.

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