Workshop with Ellen de Vries: great copy and ideas in less than an hour….
August 5th, 2008 by bensauer
So at the beginning of July I sat down with web copywriter Ellen de Vries to refine some copy for a project I’m working on (more on that later). She asked me a series of questions that we attempted to answer together, in order to refine the ideas I want to present and produce some great copy.
What very quickly emerged was that I hadn’t really achieved the required focus for what I will be selling in my project, and that Ellen’s questions became much more of a strategic discussion (which often happens to me when I’m questioning a client in the early days of ‘just building a website’!).
In less than an hour we’d covered a lot of ground: I’ve now got some strategic clarity, fresh ideas for my product, clearer ideas about how to sell it, and an outline for copy that should practically write itself. I’d highly recommend going through this process with Ellen, and I may well try incorporate the exercise into my next project for someone else.
I believe the ideas are taken from ‘Web Copy That Sells‘. Here are the questions that Ellen asked: we had to write 5 answers for each one.
- Name the key problems faced by your customers.
- Why haven’t these problems been solved before?
- What will have changed as a result of your product?
- Paint a picture of how things will change for your customer.
- What actions would you like a user to your site to take?
- What makes you different from the competition?
Ellen really helped me to refine my answers into something very friendly and readable, all in under an hour. Thanks again Ellen!