Copywriting advice from a Google search
I Googled ‘copywriting advice’ to see what tips the Internet could offer. What could Google tell me that we don’t already cover in our courses? Let’s find out.
Know Your Audience
The first suggestion is ‘Know your audience’. We completely agree. The more you know about the person you’re trying to attract, and the closer you tailor your writing to suit them, the more effective your job ad will be.
Tell Stories
The internet then suggests ‘Tell stories’. Yes, stories are compelling to read. Certainly more than dry prose. But not everyone will respond to your story-telling. Some will prefer a list of facts. It comes back to point 1. Know your audience.
Read Your Writing Out Loud
What’s next… ‘Read your writing out loud’. This is good advice. We often urge recruiters who do our copywriting courses to write as they speak. It gets away from that overly formal fake corporate tone of voice and makes their ads easier to read.
Always Include A Call To Action
Tip number 4: ‘Always include a call to action’. You could argue that this is the difference between writing and copywriting. Copywriting always has a most wanted response and that turns into the CTA. In the case of job ads, it’s usually ‘apply now’. On our courses, you’ll discover the tried-and-tested form of wording that Mitch Sullivan recommends for this section of your ads.
Use Active Voice
Number 5: ‘Use active voice’. Now, this is not to be confused with active or passive candidates. In grammatical terms, it’s the difference between ‘the cat sat on the mat’ (active) and ‘the mat was sat on by the cat’ (passive). So don’t write ‘Experience of xyz is desirable’, write ‘You’ll be able to build on your experience of xyz to achieve [whatever]’, for example.
Include a Conclusion
At 6, they say you should include a ‘Conclusion’. In job ads, I’m not so sure. There’s a structure we share which suggests you put all the good bits at the top (the sell) and the information they need to know at the bottom (the tell).
Benefits Not Features
Number 7 is ‘Benefits not features’.. Yes, yes, yes. It’s pretty easy to list the features of a job – they’ve probably been given to you by the hiring manager in the job description. To turn them into benefits, ask ‘So what?’ or ‘Who cares?’ or ‘Which means that…’ Spell out the benefits so the reader can see at a glance what’s in it for them. Do that in the headline and top of the ad and it will perform better for you, we promise.
It’s not bad advice from Google, but not always relevant to writing job ads – for that you’ll need to look at our Copywriting for Recruiters course.
If you would like more thoughts and musings on recruitment, you might want to download Mitch’s free book “On Recruitment”.
