How to Write Conversational Copy Like a Pro
Dear ,
I just got a call from a longtime reader yesterday who was taking someone else’s copywriting course.
He told me, “I turned in my practice copy, and they say I can’t write conversational copy.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “If you can talk, you can write conversational copy.”
Then I asked him, “Have you got a handheld tape recorder? If not, go out and get one. Just record yourself, and then turn the recording into a transcript. There is your conversational copy.”
He said, “Nobody ever told me that before.” He lit up as though I had invented the light bulb.
I told him, “That’s what I do--especially if I know the subject frontward and backward.”
In fact, I wrote this short message while I was on my elliptical, using the voice app and Google Docs as I dripped sweat over my iPhone. After I record my spoken copy, I just clean up all the typos and misspelled and omitted words on the computer, as I am doing right now.
Can it be that simple? Yes, it is--for me.
That’s because I got my degree in speech communications from the greatest college in the world, San Diego State University, where there wasn’t a class that didn’t require you to make some kind of oral presentation.
In fact, it was my favorite class, Business and Professional Speaking, where the teacher made everyone memorize his speech formula for his impromptu speech exercises.
You got called on, reached your hand into a basket of subjects, and it was go time, baby.
If you did not use that formula with your impromptu speech, you got an F.
Of course, I did use it… which is why when I went to Toastmasters years later, I would always win the ribbon! His formula (it’s mine now) was my secret weapon, and has been one of my many secret weapons for my writing projects as well.
The reason is simple: I don’t see any of them as writing projects but simply as speeches that persuade on paper. Or in today’s world, speeches that persuade on your computer screen.
Which is why I always read my copy out loud over and over in order to continue to polish it until the copy sings.
Of course, you know, the copy doesn’t really sing. But you know what I mean. It sounds like I am talking to you and not at you, like my little note today.
And that, my friends, is how you write conversational copy like a pro!
One final note: I always like to read copy to my clients. One client told me, “You have not lived until you have heard one of D’Anna’s dramatic readings.”
All good wishes,
Doug D'Anna, Copywriter and Creator of
The Million-Dollar Copywriting Formula
FYI: If you are interested in personal copywriting coaching, I have two spaces available in my coaching program. To learn more, click here.
