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What Does Commercial Copywriting Have To Do With Poetry?

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You may have noticed that Fawn Press offers professional services such as commercial copywriting and editing services as well as our publishing endeavours – so why on Earth would a client come to a house of Poetry of all places, to find a copywriter? Well, just for a moment, let’s put aside the decade of marketing and advertising experience behind Fawn Press Editors (but not so far aside that we forget that they’re there, of course.) A copywriter may have experience of SEO (which we also have) social media copy (we have that too) and advertising (yep, bags of that) so why come to Fawn Press and employ a Poet to write your commercial copy?

Black magic

We’ve all heard that copywriting can be described as a kind of alchemy – a cauldron of keyword optimisation, brand tone adherence, and sales tactics, however there is just a certain sparkle that comes from hiring a truly creative Creative. Allow us to use a recent example to elucidate:

We spoke with a beauty brand looking to repackage their range, and one of their dye products came in an array of colours. One of the colours was black.

To anyone but an artist, a colour might just be a colour, but a creative eye ‘sees’ a world of opportunities. A colour is never just a colour. Something we teach in our poetry workshops is to work with synonyms in order to appeal to a wide range of the senses. You don’t just ‘see’ black, you might associate it with a sensation, a feeling, or an emotion. A poet might mine into their lexicon to dig out vocabulary that appeals to the tastebuds (blackberry, liquorice) or to the sense of touch (ice, cold, dark.) It is not enough to simply call a shade of dye “black“, in order to make it appealing, the writer must tantalise the senses and emotions through the array of words at their disposal. Does the way in which you describe this particular shade of blue-black have sex appeal? Does it invoke a sense of magic? Does it tell a story about the buyer? Does the buyer feel as though they are purchasing into a certain lifestyle with this product?

The narrator is always seeking to form a relationship with the reader, whether it is the poetic voice of a collection, or the persuasive voice of a brand connecting with the buyer.

Is the shade black, or is it “midnight onyx“or “raven eye” or “charcoal hex” ?

Does the dye simply enrich your hair, or does it have “spellbinding” qualities? The entire range of vocabulary at use here will radiate from the creative interpretation of the colour “black.”

Still not convinced? Feel free to drop us a message and request a writing sample from us today. Poets won’t just think outside of the box, they will reinvent it, sell it back to you, and they might just make you fall in love with it.