Spring clean your copywriting

The daffodils are blooming. Easter eggs line the supermarket shelves. Everyone is asking when the clocks change. It’s that time of year again to dust away the cobwebs to prepare for spring – and zhuzh up your copy too.

To help you make the most of the longer days, here are our 3 quick tips to polish your copywriting skills and declutter your documents.

1. Get rid of words you don’t need

Spring cleaning is all about decluttering. Challenge yourself to cut down your word count. For example, ‘the’ is a pesky little word which has a tendency to pop up unnecessarily. Or ‘that’, or ‘just’, or ‘very’. Bin them to make your copy tidier.

Instead of saying ‘that you need to make quite sure that every word you use makes a difference’, simply say: ‘make every word count’.

2. Freshen up your sentence length

Many people are guilty of writing sentences that are too long. However, lots of short sentences can be tedious to read too. After a few in a row, they lose their impact. Try mixing up your sentence length to freshen up your copy and add rhythm to your writing.

Remember rhythm can set a mood. Short sentences add drama and tension. Unusual rhythms can be mysterious or jarring. Long words and complex sentences can sound thoughtful (but watch they don’t become boring).

3. Try something new

It’s easy to fall into a habit of using the same techniques. For example, always adding a question or list of three. Instead, test out a different approach.

In our Sharper Copywriting workshop, we encourage people to create a toolbox of techniques that they can dip into whenever they face a copywriting challenge, whether that’s creating a hard-hitting headline or informative insight piece.

Our clients are already snapping up workshop dates for this year. If you want to find out more about in-house training for your team, we’d love to explain how we’ll tailor the session to suit your unique challenges.