8. Finding Inspiration

Having stripped away your message to the bare bones of what you want to say, you may wonder whether there will be any room left for that wonderful creativity copywriters are supposed to possess. How are you going to impress your client (and their audience) if you are barred from finding space for that great turn of phrase or simile you had in mind? How are you going to apply your written powers of persuasion in an intro just 25 words long? And surely it is a waste to confine all the research you have done into a topic to just 200 words of copy?

If that is your thinking, then forget it. I bet your ‘wonderfully creative’ copy would have ended up sounding pompous and long-winded. Directness and simplicity are paths to creativity, not obstacles to it. Distilling your message to its essence will give you a clear insight into what you are really trying to say. Working out what is interesting and relevant to your audience will help you discover new ways of saying it. The process can be summarised as follows:

• What am I really trying to say? (‘Buy my book.’)
• Why is this relevant to my audience? (It isn’t, unless they want to improve their writing skills and earn more money.)
• What can I say that will get them interested in the first place? (‘Earn more through writing.’)

If you know what you want to say but are really stuck for an original way to put it, here are some tips that might help throw up the headline or intro you are looking for.

• Narrow down your message to one or two key words and think about whether they have any connection or double meaning that might work in another context relevant to your audience.
• Ask yourself ‘What if . . . ?’ questions about your subject matter (for example: ‘What if everyone was given a free product X?’).
• Take a train of thought regarding your subject matter to its logical conclusion (for example: detergent X washes whiter than ever; so white your clothes might blind you; so you write: ‘Optician’s warning – buy sunglasses before use’).
• Turn your argument on its head and think about the consequences of not using the products and services you are promoting. This technique has been used in marketing for generations, to create demand for goods that would probably be hard to justify otherwise. Think about why you buy toilet cleaner. Sure, it kills those nasty bugs which are supposed to live in your loo bowl. But how often do you touch your loo bowl anyway?