Top Writing Tips For Business

1. Photo Captions

John Drewry

John Drewry - making YOUR words work

Chances are, the first thing you read was the photo caption. That’s because most people read captions.
So it follows that you should never waste captions – always use them to deliver a message.
Just one of the many tools and techniques in John Drewry’s all-encompassing copy master class – Making Words Work

2. GIVING GOOD SLIDE ! John Drewry's next tip....

Whenever I ask delegates how much they absorb of an average presentation, the answer is remarkably consistent – 10%. I then point out that this means 90% of the average presentation falls on deaf ears. The secret is to regard Screen, Speaker and especially Handout as 3 separate pieces of the jigsaw. Indeed, instead of the Handout being landscape copies of your slides, write the Handout first, as an authoritative A4 portrait document. Your slide show should then be highlights from your Handout. This keeps the slides simple, the show short, and relegates all the detail to a document your delegates can study afterwards at their leisure.

3. Golden Rules:

1.      Always try and turn a feature into a benefit
2.      Always try to turn a benefit into an offer
3.      No Offer No Sale
4.      All offers are considered
5.      All headlines should be offers

4. Sentences

We recommend sentences should be a maximum of 20 words. This can often be achieved simply by removing the "ands" from long sentences and starting a new sentence.

5. Paragraphs 6 lines maximum

6. Headings/Sub-heads

Summarise each A4 page of text as just 3 key statements
These become the sub-heads on that page
They don't just serve as intros to the text below, but also tell the essential story to the scanner

June 2008 Masterclass Seminars and Workshops