Videos have one major advantage over still images—they tell a story. Static images like a stop sign or a transit map are contextually understood. However, when a stop sign and subway map are paired with simple text that quotes the number of people who die in transit yearly, the message changes.

Not only do videos like these tell stories, they do so with compelling visuals and voiceovers or emotionally-stirring musical scores. As the market of everyday Americans drifts further from reading simple texts, infographic videos are filling the information transfer vacuum. Since a live-action video might serve to offer more flexible interpretations or distractions, a series of static images with small text excerpts, will allow you to control how media (and your marketing message) is understood.

Infographic videos are not a passing fad. They are a charismatic way to relate important details. They have the power to communicate inspiring images while relaying important blurbs of text. By incorporating the dual powers of minimal text and visual graphics, you can captivate your audience.

1. Do you know how to write to my audience?

The average marketing copywriter has an intuitive sense of how to write a general sales article, and most copywriters have a sense of audience just from the keywords they’re working with. But with vast variations in audience preferences, one person’s friendly contraction can be another’s eyesore of an unwelcome word combo. If the writer knows the difference between an academic tone and a blue-collar satire, you know they can grip any audience with the same topic.

2. How do you plan for your pieces?

This question is critical in view of pay and client-employer relationship. As a general rule, writers are not going to be as motivated by two-cent-per-word rates, and they will do less planning for the layout of an article. The trick to finding a writer who is worth his or her weight in paid words is to examine the writing process.

Planning for an article or marketing excerpt is in the grafted mind of a good writer. He or she might not be able to explain it like an expert, but will be able to talk about the process of word selection, article flow, and content selection. How the writer plans is the most important aspect of writing—period.

3. What is your specialty?

While planning for an article and aiming at a specific demographic are key to successful drafting, the marketing copywriter will not be shy about admitting to their areas of expertise. These topics of extended knowledge do not speak against the author’s ability to work outside of his or her primary field, but rather, they show that he or she is in touch with his or her limitations. All writers, every last one of them, have boundaries to their knowledge.

The same message that has been given to every grade-schooler for centuries is still true today. Write about what you know and your words will sing. An actor pontificating on physics should never be trusted, unless of course, that actor knows his or her limitations and has studied and revised, revised, revised. Topics out of a writer’s area of specialization are less likely to be gripping.

The advent and growth of the Internet makes it almost impossible for entrepreneurs to ignore or opt out of video media. Yet, just because you’ve got a new plan that will help educate scholars in scientific pursuits or a new computer technology that will make Apple look antiquated, you might not know how to make compelling videos that break down this information for viewers. Finding and partnering with a company that specializes in quality video production isn’t a concession, it’s smart business.

Finding the right company that will understand your vision isn’t easy though. The truth is, videographers march to the beat of their own drum, and many times don’t enjoy working “with” clients so much as “through” clients. The first rule to abide by when hiring a videographer is to hire a company that truly cares about what you have to say.

When you watch a video for your new product or service and are compelled to buy it yourself, you know you’ve got the real deal. Since advertisers have roughly seven seconds to grab viewers, you need a short film that will hook them from the first frame and crescendo up from there.

You need serious video production professionals who know what it means to craft cutting-edge videos. If they can take what you do and spin it for creative concepts, throw in a smart bit of copywriting, lay a killer soundtrack over the images and select the right animation, then, and only then, do you have a winning videographer team.

The good news is no one has to. Even novice writers can craft compelling narratives. The trick to making people love what you write is to follow five easy steps—creative copywriting sells.

1.       Know your topic (and you probably do, because again, you wouldn’t have opened the business if you didn’t).

2.       Know your audience and make them smile. If you’ve started a company for computer coding, your potential clients will smile with the standard binary joke, “There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who can read binary, and those who can’t.” The same joke won’t work if you run a non-profit agency that serves the homeless. Make the effort to understand and cater to your target audience.

3.       Don’t waste words. Many people got the idea in school that more words made a bad situation better, but it doesn’t—it makes it worse. More bad writing won’t cancel out anything and your message will be lost. Many times an article or blog that is moderately bad can be made better just by following the rule-to-live-by of E.B White, the author of Charlotte’s Web: “Omit needless words.” It improves your writing, and the extra white space on the webpage helps the eye process the necessary information.

4.       Embrace “failure”. This rule sounds absurd, but it’s crucial. Some of the best professional copywriters woke up one day after years of disheartening writing and decided they’d write for broke. They thought, “I’d rather get fired than write one more boring article for a boring business,” and all of a sudden their box was full with work. When you think failure, you end up taking risks that often lead to success.

5.       Ignore the rules. No, don’t throw grammar out the window; people need to be able to understand your ideas. But just because you’re offering a product for a bank or financial firm doesn’t mean you can’t toss in a contraction or some happily-placed, casual lingo. Rules don’t always stifle creativity, but creativity always breeds excitement.

If you follow these five rules, you may have copy on your page that isn’t perfect, but when someone laughs they remember. When someone remembers, they return, which leads to buying. Make customers laugh or tug their heartstrings; move them with powerful rhetoric and creative copywriting.

The importance of creating a video that showcases what makes your business unique should not be underestimated. A company that does not take the time to create such a video is depriving itself of the many potential customers that it could be reaching—in effect, shutting the door on a whole market segment. A unique, well-made video will be watched again and again, and will often travel further and penetrate a market more thoroughly than a printed advertisement ever could. Take the time to work with us and create one or even a number of videos for your company. You are sure to find that this means of advertising is more than worth it.

At The Cultivated Word, we have had experience in working with clients all over the world and in various different fields. We would be happy to work with you in creating a promotional video that is unique and that will suit your needs. We have experience in this field and would enjoy the chance to showcase your business in the best possible light.

Almost three years ago (our birthday is at the end of May), I launched The Cultivated Word with two clients and a desire to help small and medium sized businesses with their overall communication strategy. With a tiny pool of clients, things weren’t easy at first, but it taught me to be resourceful and tenacious about making my business successful. This is not unlike the experience of many of the start-ups we now work with, and I think that’s what makes The Cultivated Word uniquely capable of understanding your needs.

Now that we’ve got this brand-spanking-new website and an enormous amount of enthusiasm to go with it, we’re ready to begin a new chapter in The Cultivated Word’s story. But what milestone would be complete without a little pageantry? Indulge us for a moment!

Tenacity Pays Off
After the wild success of the Grasshopper 5000 Campaign, for which The Cultivated Word produced the viral  video, Entrepreneurs Can Change the World, we had work coming in from around the globe–website copywriting, video, and more. It was kind of insane. The video was about entrepreneurs, and clearly much of its success was due to the hyper-engagement of that specific audience. However, it also resonated with many other groups including would be entrepreneurs looking for motivation that their crazy idea was worth a shot, and non-entrepreneurs who understood that if we could harness that child-like excitement that we have as kids, we could do just about anything in life. The multiple levels of engagement and the authenticity of the message is what made the video go viral, and that’s what The Cultivated Word is all about.

Moving Forward
Since our initial viral video success, we’ve been fortunate to have been a part of a lot of exciting video projects such as oDesk’s The Future of Work, the Thank A Teacher campaign, Ride the Entrepreneur Rollercoaster, as well as A New Day, produced for TED Fellow Nitin Grant’s Equal India Alliance, and released December 2010. While we have some amazing new videos in the works for 2011, we’ve also produced some really fun and fresh copy for start-ups like PackageFox, Chargify, Spreadable, Little Duck Organics, SkillTesting, Grasshopper, and Mudpies & Butterflies (new website design and copy provided by yours truly launching in 2011), as well as some smaller projects for The Sinclair Institute and Standard Register. It’s hard to believe we’ve done all of this in just two and a half years, and we’re looking forward to what the next few years have in store for us!

Conviction + Action = Brand Idea
Regardless of whether it’s a video project or copy for a website, we always keep this little equation in mind because it serves as a beacon in the sometimes stormy seas of messaging. When you know what greater purpose your product serves, and you articulate clearly what that is, you’re on the right track for building a strong brand. Unfortunately, in the midst of determining your identity, it can be extremely difficult to remember this, which is where The Cultivated Word comes in. Utilizing our wealth of experience (and, of course, this handy little equation) we look forward to nurturing and growing brands with powerful creative in 2011, and beyond.

If you’re writing copy for your company’s website, it’s pretty hard to generate objectivity about your copy because you’re steeped in your own rhetoric. However, if you must go it alone, don’t fall prey to these five blunders.

#1 – Your homepage looks like a content bomb went off. Words are everywhere, from the top navigation to way past the fold. Worst of all, you’ve got to read through everything to figure out where to go next. Instead of stuffing your homepage with keywords, do a little research into SEO, and ask yourself what you would want to see first when you visit your own site. This will give you a clue about what others want to see, too.

#2 – You use tons of exclamation points. Adding multiple exclamation points is unnecessary. Limit yourself to one exclamation point per sentence–if you use more, you run the risk of making your site look like a teenager’s text message. And remember, exclamation points are used to call attention to something–if they’re everywhere, you’ll render important points meaningless.

#3 – You didn’t bother reading through your work before publishing it. Big mistake. Even if you think you’re perfect, you’ve got to read through what you’ve written before you publish it on your site. It’s not cute when there’s a mistake in your copy, especially when customers are considering buying your product or service. Mistakes make you look sloppy and unprofessional.

#4- You like to use the ‘ellipsis’, and stick four or five on sentences. Remember the “rule of three” when it comes to the ellipsis (singular) or ellipses (plural), those little dots after words or phrases that signal something has been omitted that the reader can infer. Most of the time, ellipses should only come in sets of three (not four, not ten). Most people writing web copy won’t encounter a situation that requires a more complicated use of ellipses, but if you’re interested, check this out.

#5 – You don’t have any copy on your site. Yes, this is an obvious one, but still worth mentioning since I’ve seen some sites that attempt to sell a product, but don’t provide copy to describe it. If you’re going to have a website, you need to be able to update it with content to both help visitors and search engines find your website (for SEO). Don’t write very well and have no idea what SEO is? Hire a copywriter. If not, do your best to at least provide simple, error-free information about your product or service.