CSI is a great TV show – it’s put together so well that it’s compelling viewing and lets you get lost in a fully formed story. Your best articles should also give readers that sort of feeling – but there’s more that you can take from the show than simply the structure of your article. But the show can demonstrate more than simply copywriting – it can show you how to really entertain your readers, and give you the chance to show off your sleuthing skills and turn up information for your clients that you wouldn’t otherwise find.
Investigate the Facts
One of the major mistakes most copywriters make is that they don’t investigate the facts that they’re given. If you’re not sure of what you’re talking about, it’s important to ensure that you research the information you’re sharing with a client and their clients. Especially if the client is relying on you to ghost-write their content. It’s important to ensure that you’re working with the best information possible of course – so you should be sure of your research skills. And unless you’ve got a long period of time, you can’t order books and devour them, so choosing the best sites and using good search engine skills is vital.
A good tip for researching articles is to think about what people would really want to know about the subject – often your first instinct questions are the right ones and will give you the opportunity to learn something new. And if you know something about the topic, you might want to consider sharing the information you get asked for the most.
Organise the Case
Once you’ve got the facts, you need to put things together in a coherent way. You might not be making a case to prosecute a murderer or solve a death, but you are going to need to present the compelling case that pulls the reader in and lets them understand what you’re trying to tell them. Presentation in these cases are everything so ensuring that you’re not missing information is critical. The easiest way to do that is bullet points – think of it as the keynotes when writing your article or articles.
Organising your case is also important for you too – so you can decide how many articles you can get out of the research that you’ve made and completed.
Present the File – From Intro to Conclusion
Or, intro to author bio. You might not always know where your article is going, and it’s important to understand what you’re going to say, even if you’re not sure exactly how it’s getting there, you’ve got the organisation of the information that you can apply with ease. Once you’ve done that, you can use your CSI sleuthing to create the case…article of your dreams.
The Bonus or Twist
One of the final things that CSI can teach you about writing is to always have a twist in some of your pieces – have some humour, have some serious. It’s your choice how to finally present and bundle the information, but if you’re doing articles in sets the most important thing to consider is mixing it up a bit. Your client will thank you and you’ll find it a lot easier to write. Ultimately, once you’ve worked on the style requirements that your client has, you can go wild and present the story of the information that you want to share. Every article can then become a mini ‘episode’ of information, where the only limits are your clients’ needs and the research that you turn up.
Working with various styles of copywriting is our expert field – we might never be called on to testify in court, but we can offer compelling content!
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