Abracadabra! 🪄 What if copywriting were a magic trick? How can you captivate, surprise, and persuade your readers in just a few words? Is there a magic formula for engaging content?
🔮 To unlock the mystery of the magic words of communication, the We Are COM team went to meet Selim Niederhoffer ! It is on the occasion of the release of his latest work: « The Magic Words ", that Selim explains to us how to use the pen like a magic wand. 🤓 Author, copywriter and copywriting trainer, our expert deciphers the magic words and above all the magic of words.
Hello Selim, to begin with, we would like to know your definition of copywriting ?
Hey hello We are com! The shortest definition? The copywriting is "write better to sell more".
Now, the more nuanced version? Copywriting is the art and science of persuasion through words, to encourage the reader to take action for you. Copywriting is to writing what rhetoric is to speaking: a fabulous tool for influencing, convincing, and persuading.
Copywriting is to writing what rhetoric is to speaking: a fabulous tool for influencing, convincing, and persuading.
To begin, can you tell us more about yourself: your experiences and challenges What motivates you on a daily basis?
I started in copywriting almost by chance, almost without knowing it! In high school, I wrote love text messages for my friends. Getting a reaction, a response, a “date” for them: that was the goal. Then after my industrial experiences in purchasing for General Electric, Schneider Electric, Land Rover and Jaguar, I had to face the facts: my software was Word, not Excel.
I first wrote for a collective of male bloggers, who published a sort of male-dominated Sex and the City. During the day, they worked in communications and advertising. They were the ones who showed me that you could make a living writing.
Since then, I have had the chance to write for major agencies and well-known clients (Wilkinson, FNAC, LinkedIn, O2 Care Services, VELUX, Sodebo, Celio, Boss, Glassdoor, Léon Grosse, Guerlain, etc.)
My goal today as a copywriting trainer is to give the keys to emancipation to all artisans and freelancers. More than 90% depend on web agencies, agencies SEO, community managers because they are too busy to write their own texts. And as a “dream big” objective: to train the elite copywriters of tomorrow and to be the best French copywriter!
Recently, your latest book, " The Magic Words » at Eyrolles. What do you call a "magic word"? ?
A magic word is a word that derails your infinite scrolling. There are negative and positive magic words: attack, Zidane, taxes, victory, immigration, refund, free, Donald Trump… Every magic word provokes an epidermal reaction in us, an emotion, and that's what a good copywriter is looking for.
Exactly, what are the ingredients of attractive content How to choose the right magic word?
Content that makes you want to click is often a good combination of magic words, magic numbers, mystery and “photo shock”. The power of words is undeniable, but when you scroll through LinkedIn, for example, it's often a visual that stops you. We must therefore recognize this visual force, the famous “A picture is worth a thousand words". Then, our mission when we write is to make people want to read the rest in just one or two lines. This is what Joseph Sugarman, a great American copywriter, explained: the goal of the first sentence is to lead us to the second. The goal of the second line is to lead us to the third, and so on.
The first line on LinkedIn or Instagram accounts for 80% of a post's success. Is it mysterious? Is it scandalous? Is it highly informative, with new and vital information? An easy mix is to offer a mysterious title, with a percentage, numbers, statistics, a star.
Example: “Brad Pitt” scams this French woman out of €830.000 online. It all starts with the title, and that's why I recommend taking care with it and always testing at least three versions. The mentor who trained me in 3 always asked me for 2010 potential titles for each article before choosing the killer title.
The right magic word answers a pain, spreads a conspiracy, reestablishes a truth. It depends on the context of the time, sometimes even on the news of the week.
The purpose of the first sentence is to lead us to the second. The purpose of the second line is to lead us to the third, and so on.
In your book, you meticulously decipher 50 words. Can you introduce them to us? your favorite word What are the secrets of its effectiveness?
If I have to keep a magic word, it would be "THANKS". It's this extra word, outside of the contract, but which gives us a wonderful customer experience. All religions and philosophies in the world advocate gratitude as the path to happiness.
In business, Saying thank you is important because the person receiving the “thank you” feels valued, recognized in their humanity. After an online purchase, do you prefer to receive a cold confirmation email like: "OK, we have received your order" or "Thank you for your order! Thank you for your trust! You will receive your pregnancy vitamin treatment in 3 days max!"? The second, of course. And that's normal: Human beings need recognition.
Conversely, is there terms to ban of our communications? Which ones and for what reasons?
I like to call them “tragic words.”I sometimes begin my corporate training sessions with a reminder of tragic words. I give examples of horrible after-sales service, or CEOs who, in a fit of madness, have despised their customers, denigrated the quality of their products or the efficiency of their employees.
In addition to these suicidal attitudes in public, there are also “spammy” words, which are well filtered by our inboxes. For example, sex, death, illness and anything related to Germany between 1925 and 1945 guarantees me a shadowban on Linkedin. Even if I write a very informative, educational post on the communication of Goebbels and Hitler, it will be rewarded with 0 likes. If I want to talk about the ternary rhythm technique, “Huey, Dewey, Louie”, “bread, wine, Boursin” and “Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer”, it will be invisible to the algorithm.
Since 2020 and Covid, we have seen contradictory attitudes depending on the platform: vaccine, for example, will be considered a very polarizing word and can make your likes counter explode or earn you a 0 point.
In the era of infobesity and the harsh law of scrolling, what would be your recommendations for staying visible and readable ?
Do as I say, not as I do: I still like nuance. Thinking and listening to the “other side” to avoid living only in my information bubble.
So I'm relatively invisible. Less visible than those who have understood that it's necessary to be polarizing. Find an enemy, build a tribe to fight this dragon. Don't forget to remind yourself of your values and your Way of the Cross, your storytelling, your journey from zero to hero!
What was “too much” 5 or 10 years ago is no longer so. What seemed vulgar and shameful to us (randomly: launching a big influencer career with a sex tape) is now rewarded and duplicated on Mym or Onlyfans.
Bob Sinclar's recent marketing experiment with his makeup was interesting: he himself admits that he is now more of an "influencer" than a DJ. What matters is visibility first, and THEN the message.
In two words : personal branding. Work on your personal brand and your editorial line. Once this step is OK, you can work on readability: What frequency? What formatting? Which social network do you prefer? Written, photo, pictogram or video?
According to a recent study conducted by the founder of Magicpost, a good LinkedIn post should be between 200 and 400 words. Go any longer than that at your own risk!
For readability, I like to test different thumbnails on the YouTube channel: The Magic Words.
Don't forget to remember your values and your way of the cross, your storytelling, your journey from zero to hero!
What do you think will be the major developments in copywriting of tomorrow, in particular with the improvement of Generative AI?
In science fiction movies, we walk down the street and see different billboards. Thanks to AI, tomorrow, in copywriting and smart glasses, I would love to be able to personalize our communications even more.
Imagine: You arrive on Instagram to discover my latest copywriting technique, posted on Reel. "Hey Hi We are com! In this video, I'm going to talk to you about the best US copywriters of the 20th century. I promise I'll keep it short, I know you recently talked about [David Ogilvy – info taken from the We are com Instagram account] in one of your posts. Go with it, it's going to be a lot less turbulent than your last trip to [Bali – info taken from the We are com Instagram account].”
Pure customization. In the manner of personalized greetings from Maurice Levy to the 100.000 Publicis employees.
Before we leave, would you have one last piece of expert copywriting advice to confide to those who read you?
Think about your reader. You're not writing for your French teacher anymore. You're not writing to shine and show off your big brain to your competitors. You write for your reader, so write from the heart.
3 things to know about Sélim Niederhoffer
His mantra? “Pain is only temporary.” On the inspirational side, Selim admires athletes and their incredible ability to stay focused.
Her favorite ad? This is an ad from the year he graduated from high school, in 2001. At the time, Nike released this spot for basketball, remember!
His passions ? Selim enjoys reading and writing business books, playing soccer, and paddleboarding alone in the middle of a lake.
His favorite word? "Pope”, but only because it’s spoken by a cute 4 and a half year old voice. : )
