Can Great Ad Copy Sell Paper Notebooks in a Digital Age?

Like most writers, I'm a bit nerdy about notebooks.

I've had dozens of them: big and small, lined and un, plain and fancy.

I fill them with stray thoughts. Ideas. Grocery lists. I take them to meetings and coffee shops. There's one in my purse. In my car. On my desk.

But in all these years of notebook nerdism, I have never run across a notebook with its own story. Until now.

Moleskine: Notebook of Champions (or at least champion copywriting)

Friends, I give you the plain black Moleskine notebook, each of which comes with a card bearing this copy:

"The Moleskine brand was born in 1997, reproducing the legendary notebook of great artists and thinkers of the past two centuries, from Vincent Van Gogh to Pablo Picasso, from Ernest Hemingway to Bruce Chatwin: a trusty, pocket-sized travel companion, the anonymous black notebook was the faithful keeper of sketches, notes, stories and tips before they became famous pictures or pages of well-loved books."

Come on! What artist or writer doesn't want a notebook linked with Van Gogh or Hemingway?

And who doesn't want a notebook that might one day lead to a best-selling novel ... a Paris gallery opening ... a Pulitzer prize?

Find the Benefits Lurking Beneath the Features

A less-skilled copywriter might have written about the notebook's features: the buttery-soft black cover, the sleek lined pages, the convenient size that fits in your pocket.

But no. This copy digs far beneath the features. Instead, it sells the true benefit of owning a Moleskine notebook: artistic integrity. Fame and fortune. Lasting excellence.

And for that, there's always a market.

What are the real benefits of your product? Make sure you sell them in your copy!

(Oh, and if you want to join the ranks of Hemingway, Chatwin and, well, me, visit Moleskine at http://www.moleskine.com/en/)

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Content-Creation Lessons from Stompin' Tom

Earlier this spring Canadians lost a national icon: Stompin' Tom Connors, legendary songwriter and musician. Stompin' Tom ignored every conceivable rule for success in the music business, and won legions of fans in the process.

How did he do this? And, more importantly, what does it have to do with copywriting or content marketing?

Well, here's the apocryphal story of how Tom got his start:

Once upon a time in Timmins, Ontario ...

In 1964 Tom rolled into Timmins with about 35 cents in his pocket. Even in 1964, that wasn't enough to buy a beer.

So the bartender at the Maple Leaf Hotel eyed Tom's guitar and offered to spot him a drink in exchange for a few songs.

Timmins, for those of you who aren't from around here, was (and is) a proud mining town in northern Ontario, the kind of place where people work hard, play hard, and sometimes die on duty.

Tom took the bartender up on his offer, and ended up coming back to sing night after night. At the end of a month, he had a crazy-loyal fan base of rough-and-ready miners, factory workers, loggers, truck drivers and more - folks who remained loyal to his unpretentious music for the rest of their lives.

Copywriting lesson: write for your audience

So, and here's the writing lesson, how did he do this?

He wrote songs about his audience. Almost as soon as he landed in Timmins, he started chatting up locals, listening to their stories, finding out about their lives. Then he spun what he heard into songs especially for them.

He wrote songs like There's A Fire In the Mine, and Sudbury Saturday Night. Songs about hockey games and arenas, and about soldiers saying goodbye to their sweethearts while dancing the Maple Leaf Waltz.

And folks who were sick to death of hearing music from far-away Toronto or LA felt like finally, someone was singing about them.

So much corporate writing misses this.

Don't write about yourself. Don't write about your product. Or your mission. Or your godawful "solutions" that "help our clients manage change."

Write about your clients. Their problems. Their questions. Their issues. Explain simply who you are, and how you can help.

Stompin' Tom would be proud.

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Writer's Block? Take a Nap.

At 2 o'clock this afternoon I was staring bleakly at a blank screen, willing a 400-word story to fall out of the sky. I'd done the research, done the interviews. But somehow the story was just not coming.

By 2:30 I still had nothing, and realized what I really wanted was to take a nap.

So I did.

Half an hour later I returned to my desk, sat down, and wrote the story in 10 minutes.

The freedom to do this is one of the great joys of working from home, but the point I'm making is this: sometimes writing can't be pushed. In fact, good writing almost always requires some incubation after you've done your research.

So even when you're on deadline - if the words aren't coming, do something else. Forget the story. Take a walk. Bathe the dog. Dig some weeds. Or take a nap. Your writing will be better in the end.

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