Nick Usborne just finished delivering an all day seminar. It was valuable, educational and fun. There’s no way I’ll have time to synopsize it all, but I’ll be using the lessons learned on my site and for clients. As I use what I learned today, I’ll blog about it.

Just a quick overview of today’s highlights:

• online copy is different from print, print copy always belonged to commerce
• online has always belonged to the users
• companies are no longer in control of their own positioning or messaging
• buyers research online, poor products have nowhere to hide
• companies have to be honest and transparent (sound familiar?)
• brochure copy was designed for people to consume at their leisure
• web copy must give people the information they want NOW
• people want relevant and useful information, not sales pitches
• people online are not passively consuming information, they’re interacting with the medium
• copy is more important online than off
• look and feel should be familiar, so people know how to navigate a site
• spend money on the messaging - that’s what makes the sale
• personality is very important, tough to pull off for B2B (but necessary)
• mediocre copywriters obsess about being clever
• top quality copywriters obsess about communicating the most important information clearly.

That’s all I have time for. Having dinner with Nick and Matt Furey. More tomorrow and much more in the weeks to come.

Tags: Copywriting, honest, web