Copywriting - what's that all about? Sarah Farley meets Sarah McCartney, one of the UK's leading exponents.

Meeting the many and varied guest speakers from the writing industries are one of the best things about our Professional Writing MA at Falmouth. In February, Sarah McCartney, a brand strategist, copywriter and author, ran a workshop on copywriting and later shared with me her tips on becoming a business writer. Her approaches to copywriting and exercises can help all of us looking for inspiration. Here's a sample:

Who is your reader?

One of our first tasks during the workshop was to think about who would be reading our work. Sarah asked us to imagine the person we were writing to. To help us visualise them, she gave us a pile of magazines and asked us to find photos that fit the description of our readers. We gave the people names and described them, including their age, job and what they like to do. After we'd thought about our audience and formed a strong image in our minds of who these people were, we wrote our copy and addressed it to them. A good way to write this is as a letter - when you are done, just delete the 'Dear X' bit. This really helped us to use a more conversational tone in our writing rather than formal business-speak. What are the benefits? When you picture your reader as an individual, you write to them as if they are an old friend with whom you are sharing a story rather than to a faceless stranger you don't care about.

Simple is best

Sarah also talked about choosing the right words for every piece of writing - and the importance of using the simplest word every time. She summed this up perfectly when asking: "Why utilise utilise, when you can use use?" This is excellent advice for all business writers. It's easy to fall into the trap of using a long word simply because it looks clever or important, but if your audience doesn't understand its meaning you have failed to communicate effectively as a writer.

Advice for writers

After the workshop I had the chance to chat with Sarah, so how did she get into business writing?

"By accident, not by design. As a kid I always wanted to be a writer, but I thought there was some kind of magic to it - like a wardrobe - that you stepped through the back of to arrive in writerland. I didn't think that option was open to me. So I studied maths and went into an ad agency doing an awful lot of calculations. I moved to The Guardian into a sales job for a while and then I got moved to marketing and it involved writing more and more. I ended up writing promotions and ads - and to be honest I wrote them like everybody else: 'We've got a great opportunity for you'.

"Then I did a masters degree in Marketing and Corporate Strategy and during this time I met Lush. I wrote something for them as part of my degree. At the end of it, because what I'd written enabled Lush to get funding from a backer to open a lot of new shops in London, they rewarded me with work - that's Lush's way. They rang up and said 'Can you write?' and I said 'Yeah' and they said 'Do you want to write Lush Times?' so I said 'Yes please' and lo, I was a writer. Before that I thought of myself as a sort of marketing consultant. I turned into a writer because suddenly I had to write. And honestly, the more you do, the better you get at it and you get faster at it as well. Just keep remembering to not bash things off too quickly and don't forget your inspiration. The difficult point is remembering to take time to continue to look for inspiration - new ideas, new thoughts that you can bring in to your writing so it doesn't get dull. But I got in sort of accidentally like that. But you know, all accidents happen because you create the opportunity."

What are the common mistakes new business writers make?

"Well I think the mistakes are generally trying to be copywriters but forgetting about customers and trying to be smart. It's thinking 'Ooh, I could be a star, I could work for Saatchi's if I just write this great headline that everyone's going to remember'. And really, a lot of the time, what you're being asked to do in copywriting is write a letter to a thousand people who need to update their pension plans. It's not very interesting, and they don't want to be sold to, they want to be talked to. Just give them the information and don't be too flashy."

What tips would you give someone who needs to write for business but hasn't got experience?

"Practise, practise, practise. Asking people's advice is always a good thing. We're not taught that at school. We're taught that it has to be your own work and it's cheating to look at anything else. There are some good books out there that help from, like John Simmons's books (We, Me, Them and It) and Roger Horberry (Brilliant Copywriting). Find out what other people do, but sit down, have a go and if you find it doesn't work, do it again. Then ask somebody else 'What do you think?' Listen to what they say and then try again."

What are agencies and marketing departments looking for in writers?

"Always the same thing - somebody who will fit in with the team and do what they're told, and on time. People come in recently qualified and say 'I'm ready to take on a challenge. I can do independent work on my own'. Don't do this: just sit down and listen, fit in and if someone says your job today is making the tea, just do it. Listen to what everyone else is saying and stop trying to impress people. Then if we say 'Come back on Tuesday with this', come back on Monday night. Ask if it's good enough and then go away and do it again. And tell your boss what you're doing because the only reason you're there and getting paid is so that your boss can then say to his or her boss 'This one's working on this at the moment' so everybody knows what everybody else is doing."

Sarah McCartney is head of brand publications at Lush Cosmetics and runs Little Max, an agency that specialises in business writing. She also runs writing workshops for people looking to inspire their creativity and flex their writing muscles.