It’s to make their messages stand out in your crowded inbox by including special characters like stars, hearts and smiley faces in subject lines. And at first glance, it works.

I bet you notice the special characters here:

I’ve seen emails that use symbols representing the sun, an umbrella, a plane and more. There are lots of different symbols you can try and as statistics show they can help increase open rates, you can bet we’ll be seeing a lot more of them in the coming months.

But I’m not sure it’s a good idea to start using them willy-nilly in marketing emails. Here’s why:

• Like using ALL CAPITALS TO SHOUT or grabbing attention with horrific blinking text, special characters seem a little impolite. They don’t show the reader much respect. They attract eyeballs but don’t add extra information in themselves.
• It can be hard to get special characters to display properly across the wide range of software and services people use to receive email, adding extra complexity to your mailings. Broken emails just make you look silly.
• The phenomenon of banner blindness means people don’t pay attention to things that look like adverts online. As special characters become more widespread, users may start to ignore them in the same way.

Besides all that, there’s the question of taste. Special characters can look a bit, well, cheap. Like trying to entice customers into a run-down shop by playing music outside, or hassling people in the street to try your restaurant, you need to think about the image you project.

Do you want to be part of the crowd that screams ever louder for attention, or would you rather invest your time in more subtle, nuanced ways of attracting and keeping customers?

In general, it’s fair to say I’m not a fan. And now I’ve found another piece of nasty sticking-plaster copy lurking on the First Great Western website:

It seems the train company recently made its user password system case sensitive. In terms of security, this is a good move. But to accommodate the change, First Great Western decided to make everyone’s passwords all-uppercase.

If you don’t realise this when you try and sign in, you see this contrived error message:

We’re sorry, the email address or password you entered was not correct. Passwords changed or created after 13th Nov 2012 are case sensitive. If you have not changed your password since the 13th November 2012, please enter your current password in UPPERCASE.

The red text means it look like a serious error message, and it makes the user think they’ve done something wrong.

This is a classic example of a company making a well-intentioned technical change to its website, but forcing users to adapt to this change, rather than taking some extra steps to make life easier for them.

I call it ‘sticking plaster copy’ because it uses lengthy instructional copy to try and patch up the issue rather than fixing it properly.

Essentially, First Great Western has changed my password without asking. That’s inelegant and impolite. (It also raises the question of how securely user passwords are stored, but I’ll leave that issue to the technical experts.)

It makes my interaction with the website more awkward, adding an extra barrier that I have to overcome in order to buy a train ticket.

As an alternative, they could simply have allowed me to sign in as normal, then prompted me to change my password at a later point – perhaps immediately after signing in, or once I’d completed my purchase.

That would have made my life a bit easier, and it might even have positive impact on their website’s conversion rate too.

Most of the people I work with are lovely. But every freelance web copywriter has encountered a tricky client or two – and I’m no exception.

Sure, sometimes, it’s these tricky clients that are most enjoyable to work with. Getting to grips with a complex product or working through a complicated brief can be highly satisfying.

But there are some things us web copywriters don’t like hearing from clients. They set the alarm bells ringing. Here’s why…

1. “Will you do this copywriting job for free?”

Usually, this question is followed by a promise that “if things go well”, there’ll be “lots of paid work to come.” Invariably, this is untrue.

The work that us web copywriters do brings significant benefits to our clients. As a result, we expect to be paid a fair fee. (There may be the odd time when you’ll get some free web copywriting. But don’t hold your breath.)

2. “It’s perfect. I just have to get sign-off from my manager. And the product manager. And the MD.”

Editing is an important part of the copywriting process. Often, constructive feedback and the subsequent changes are what transform a good piece of work into a great piece of work.

But that’s only possible when feedback is clear and unambiguous. If several people need to be involved in the approval and sign-off process, it’s best for them all to review draft content at the same time. Often, different people have very different views on what needs changing, so feedback needs to be consolidated and agreed.

Any copywriter worth their salt will help you with this. For instance, a conference call with key people followed by a quick email confirming the scope of changes can work wonders.

3. “Can we get those amendments back today?”

Usually, this request comes after a client has taken several weeks or months to send their own feedback to the writer.

It’s not that we don’t want to deliver, you understand. But in the same way that many clients are too busy to be able to review draft content immediately, good web copywriters won’t always be able to drop everything to hit a short-notice deadline.

(Depending on the project, I try to agree a clear schedule which includes dates for delivery of draft content, feedback and edits.)

4. “I’d write it myself, except I don’t have the time.”

I’m a professional writer, skilled at crafting content for the web that delivers tangible benefits to my clients.

I can help increase your sales, create a distinctive image for your business and talk to your customers in their language. And I want to work with clients who recognise me for those skills.

5. “No, I’m afraid we don’t sign contracts.”

I have been incredibly lucky with the clients I’ve worked with. Almost without exception, they pay up reliably and on time. Having heard many horror stories, I’m very grateful for this.

But I still get nervous when new clients aren’t willing to sign a copywriting contract or commit to anything more than a verbal agreement. A clear, simple contract protects both parties, and is one of the key foundations of a good working relationship.

I am not a fan of pushy estate agents. But if you are in that line of business, here’s some advice: if you’re going to go to the trouble of sending letters to home owners asking if they fancy renting their flats, don’t start by saying sorry.

Here are the first couple of lines from a letter that fell through my door recently:

“I apologise for this direct approach however we have seen a great demand this past summer with prospective tenants looking for properties like yours to rent.”

Even if you can disregard the questionable punctuation, admitting that your ‘direct approach’ may be inappropriate is hardly the best way to snag a new customer.

To anyone already put off by the impersonal letter, the apology simply confirms that the estate agent knows they should know better. And why apologise to anyone who actually doesn’t mind this out-of-the-blue communication?

There are many different ways to run a successful direct mail campaign, but opening your message with an apology is not one of them. If you’re confident your message is right for the people you’re sending it to, there’s no reason to say sorry.

The beer might not stand out from the crowd, but Grolsch has created a clever experience which links email, online video and text messaging.

The campaign centres around a fictional policeman, Journt, who’s giving away packs of Grolsch. It’s not entirely clear why the cops would be handing out free booze, but let’s not dwell on that for now.

To explain further, the firm sent an email to people who’d previously registered on its website:

“To enter the prize draw visit our new website and meet Journt. If Journt knows your name, he will give you some free Grolsch! Simply visit www.grolsch.co.uk to find out more…”

The clever bit comes when you click through the Grolsch website. A short video plays showing the mysterious Journt sat at a bar. He invites you to text your name to the number shown on his business card:

If you’re anything like me, you’ll be nervous about whipping out your smart phone and texting your name to this Journt character. I’m wary of giving my mobile details to companies because spam text messages bug me.

But if you do take the plunge and send your name, within a matter of seconds, some nifty computer code has received your message and displayed it beautifully in the video window. The result is that you see Journt reading your message:

I’ve not seen SMS and web technology joined up quite like this before, and I’m impressed. There’s a definite moment of surprise when your message pops up on screen, particularly as it’s such a fast, smooth, polished experience.

As a nice conclusion to the experience, Journt taps out a message on his phone – which then arrives on your handset a few seconds later. If you’re lucky, he’ll tell you that you’ve won some free beer.

It hasn’t got me gasping for a Grolsch (I’m more likely to enjoy a Meantime Wheat Beer or similar), but it’s certainly raised the brand’s prominence in my mind. As a campaign to boost awareness of Grolsch, it works well.

However, I’m not convinced the fashion-and-more retailer has quite got its online checkout process licked. Just have a look at this bemusing range of delivery options:

(See this image full-size in a new window.)

It reminds me slightly of the Trainline’s bonkers ticket selection screen, which I wrote about way back in 2007. In any case, the options presented are confusing and unnecessary, particularly if you want to get your order in a hurry.

With six next-day delivery options to choose from, how do you tell which is best? This comparison chart is less-than-helpful, because each of the options has exactly the same columns ticked.

Rule number one of creating an online checkout process is to keep it as simple as possible. Adding complexity makes it harder for people to complete their order, meaning fewer people manage to get to the end of the process.

Sure, it’s good to offer some choice of delivery options, but too much choice creates uncertainty: how do you know which is the best option for you?

I think Chemical would do well to chop their bemusing range of delivery services down to three: standard, guaranteed next-day and guaranteed Saturday. If they did, I bet they’d see a decrease in the number of visitors dropping out before completing their online orders.

UK train stations are a rich source of poorly-written and confusing signs. Take this label, spotted at Reading station.

‘Platform lighting controller’? That’ll be what the rest of us call a light switch.

I can’t think of a single situation where you’d ever describe this as a ‘platform lighting controller’, so why do so here? It just creates confusion.

I particularly like the helpful information beneath: ‘When the indictor [sic] is lit, platform lights are on.’ Spelling error aside, it’s worth knowing that I spotted this label while standing on the platform. So I expect it’s fairly obvious when the lights are on. It would be dark otherwise.

Complicated terminology makes things harder to understand. Unnecessary information detracts from the really important stuff. As labels go, this is a good example of how not to do it.

It all happens in London from 16 – 18 May. I’m on the conference’s ‘Rising Stars’ track, which is both flattering and rather nervewracking, as there are some first-class speakers on the bill – giving me a hell of a lot to live up to.

No pressure then.

As the event is meant to be all about the future of web design, I’m giving a talk called Copywriting is Design. Here’s what it’s about, pulled straight from the blurb I wrote for my bit on the FOWD website:

Copywriting is web design. And it’s about time someone stood up and said so. Because, all too often, the text for a web project ends up being shoehorned in at the last minute. And that can ruin everything.

In this talk, John explains how great copy can make the difference between a design which works, and one that doesn’t. He describes how designers and writers should collaborate to build great web interfaces. He shows how every bit of copy matters – especially when it comes to forms and complex web app interfaces – and highlights some common mistakes.

I’m up just before lunch on 18 May. If you’re coming to FOWD, it’d be great to see you there. Do say hello, even if you don’t make it to my session.

In the meantime, I’m off to do a lot of rehearsing – and some panicking.

I was just flicking back through some old photos on my phone and noticed a couple of headlines I’ve snapped that are too good not to share. The first is from earlier this year, when anchorman Richard Keys left his job at Sky Sports. It’s short, to the point, and absolutely nails the story:

But it’s the second that I’m more impressed with. Cast your mind back to last autumn and one of the year’s rare good news stories.

Now, imagine you’re a sub-editor at The Sun. How are you going to lead on the story? Would it occur to you to take the name of a band, then carefully change a word here and there to result in a headline of wit and beauty?

No, me neither. You might sometimes question the quality of tabloid journalism, but you can’t deny the intelligence of their headlines.

(Read about some other great tabloid headlines that I’ve spotted.)

That’s why I love this flowchart from Jessica Hische. She’s pretty much nailed the decision-making process I go through when considering whether I should give up my time for free.

If you’re a fellow freelancer, read it and laugh, cry or chuckle in that cynical way that only world-weary freelancers can. If you’re a potential client, take a look too – maybe it’ll give you an insight into what life working freelance is like. Or maybe it’ll just give you a laugh. Either’s good.

Large version here. Hat tip to the always-amazing swissmiss.

(Image from Newsbie Pix under a Creative Commons Attribution licence.)