copy writing

Want your content to go viral, or at least get shared? Then don't overdo the adjectives. That's one of the interesting findings Dan Zarrella shares in his book, Zarrella's Hierarchy of Contagiousness.

Compelling, emotion-rich adjectives can give bland copy a major boost in effectiveness. (Just like the start of that sentence!) I was reminded of this while viewing a Panera menu. Which do you think sounds more appealing: Ham,…

Should you spend as much time polishing the few words of your headline as on the hundreds of words that comprise your news article or blog post? The answer may well be, "Yes!" according to a new study by OTOInsights. In an unusual…

In Surprising the Brain, I wrote about a copywriting technique that replaces an expected word with an unexpected one to grab the listener's or reader's attention: Advertising copywriters have for years used a similar technique to jar the…

Few would argue that Shakespeare is one of the greatest writers in the English language, but we don't see Madison Avenue putting much of their copy in sonnet form. And while I don't expect to see a surge in the use of iambic pentameter in…